The Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act (SHIELD Act) fails to protect the free software community from software patents.

On August 1st, 2012, the Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act, or SHIELD Act[PDF], was introduced to Congress by Representatives Peter DeFazio and Jason Chaffetz. This act is meant to deal with the problem of patent trolls destroying software businesses. The bill would enable victims of patent trolling to have their costs covered if the judge decides that the plaintiff was not likely to succeed on their claims. While many are hailing the bill for fighting against patent trolls, it does not go far enough for us to support it, and it carries some risks that concern us.

The bill defines a software patent as "any process that could be implemented in a computer regardless of whether a computer is specifically mentioned in the patent or ... any computer system that is programmed to perform a process described [above]." It then goes on to state that nothing in the bill is meant to affect the scope of patentable subject matter. This is really a lost opportunity to once and for all end the entire software patent mess. The bill might help large corporations avoid costly litigation or settlements, but it does nothing to alleviate the problem for the free software community. The bill works to diminish a harm for some that it could simply remove for all.

Even if the SHIELD Act does succeed in blocking patent trolls, the software patent system would continue to threaten the free software community. Developers would still have to worry about the threat of patent lawsuits. Companies would still be able to use the threat of a patent to abuse and manipulate others into either costly settlements or into not developing much-needed free software. The free software community would still have to waste time and resources trying to avoid or defend against the software patent minefield. Removing a few mines from the field won't change this calculation, since stepping on a single mine is so devastating.

The bill attempts to patch a broken system without questioning whether that system is harmful to begin with. This carries the unfortunate consequence of possibly prolonging the damage wrought by software patents. Any reform to reduce the risk of "bad" patents risks entrenching a false notion of "good" software patents. We are also concerned that legislation like this would make judges more sympathetic to patent claims, since the risks for anyone initiating the claims would be greater. In software, the problem is not limited to bad patents, frivolous claims, or patent trolls -- the problem is that patents exist at all.

The scope of patentable subject matter is defined legislatively, but if the bill passes then the legislature will have punted on this most important issue. We encourage Congress to end software patents, and to legislate that computer-based implementations should be immunized from patent infringement claims. That would be a real shield for all software developers.

• Please join us in our campaign against software patents at http://news.swpat.org/. You should also join the campaign mailing list to stay up-to-date.
• To learn more about the SHIELD Act, please see our resources at http://en.swpat.org/wiki/SHIELD.
• You can also support our future work against software patents by making a donation to the FSF.

There were 21 new GNU releases this month!

New GNU releases as of July 30, 2012:

aris-1.8        grep-2.13            linux-libre-3.5-gnu
automake-1.12.2 guile-2.0.6          mpc-1.0
bison-2.6       help2man-1.40.11     mpfr-3.1.1
gama-1.12       icecat-13.0.1        nettle-2.5
gcc-4.5.4       libmicrohttpd-0.9.21 source-highlight-3.1.7
gnujump-1.0.8   libobjc-1.6.1        xorriso-1.2.4
gnutls-3.0.21   librejs-4.8          zile-2.4.8

To get announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu. Nearly all GNU software is available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors (http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html). You can use the url http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.

This month we welcome Tassilo Horn as a new co-maintainer of auctex, and Graham Percival as a new co-maintainer of Lilypond.

Several GNU packages are looking for maintainers and other assistance. Please see http://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to help. The general page on how to help GNU is at http://www.gnu.org/help/help.html. To submit new packages to GNU, see http://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.

As always, please feel free to write to me, karl@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

Joshua Gay and I were recently interviewed about our new roles here at the Free Software Foundation.

Joshua Gay and I were recently interviewed for an article by Bruce Byfield, "The FSF Compliance Lab Doubles." Bruce shares our excitement in super-charging our ability to help the free software community with licensing issues. Byfield discusses how our expanded capacity means that we are better able to make use of the volunteers we have, as well as to recruit new members to our licensing team. If you would like join the licensing team and help answer community questions about free software licensing, please send an email to licensing@fsf.org.

We thank Bruce for taking the time to talk with us. If you are a reporter looking for insight into a particular licensing issue, a recent headline, or you just want to know the latest news in the free software licensing world, don't hesitate to contact us at licensing@fsf.org. We would love the opportunity to discuss the things that we are so passionate about.

Gnu Press announces the availability of an FSF logo knife/cybertool including twelve tools.

The Free Software Foundation shop is now offering a portable toolkit suitable for both IT professionals and at-home computer users. Perfect for the GNU/Linux sysadmin, this 3.5-inch Victorinox/Swiss Army Cybertool 29 features the Free Software Foundation logo in white lettering on a red translucent background. The Cybertool includes:

• a small blade,
• a corkscrew,
• a can opener with small screwdriver complete with Philips screws,
• a bottle opener with large screwdriver and wire stripper,
• reamer,
• a key ring,
• tweezers,
• a toothpick,
• a sewing eye,
• a bit wrench with
• 5mm hex socket
• #0 Philips bit
• #1 Philips Bit,
• bit case with
• 4mm flat head
• #2 Philips head bit
• 4mm Hex bit
• #8 Torx bit
• #10 Torx bit
• #10 Torx Bit
• #15 Torx bit,
• a pressurized ball point pen,
• a DIP switch setter straight pen,
• and a mini-screwdriver.

Show your support for the FSF with this cool knife!

As always, if you can't find something in the store but think we should offer it, please add your suggestion to our Ideas page. And remember, associate members of the Free Software Foundation get a 20% discount on all purchases made through the GNU Press store, so if you are not a member already, join today! To keep up with announcements about new products available in the GNU Press store, subscribe to the mailing list.