Florian Müller
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Florian Müller (born January 21, 1970 in Augsburg, Germany) is a lobbyist, entrepreneur, consultant, and the founder of the NoSoftwarePatents campaign. He blogs about patent issues[1][2].
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[edit] Software industry/computer books
In 1985, Müller started writing articles for German computer magazines.[3] A year later, at age 16, he became Germany's youngest computer book author.[4]
From 1987 to 1998, he specialized on publishing and distribution cooperations between US and European software companies. He initiated and managed such alliances in various market segments, including productivity software, utility software, educational software, and computer games. As a consultant to and representative of Blizzard Entertainment, Müller was involved in the marketing campaigns for WarCraft II,[5] Diablo I[6] and StarCraft I[7]).
In 1996, he co-founded an online gaming service named Rival Network,[8] which in early 2000 was acquired by the Telefónica group. From 2001 to 2004, Müller advised the CEO of MySQL AB,[9] developer of the namesake open-source database management software product.
[edit] Campaign against EU software patents
In 2004, Müller received the support of corporate sponsors 1&1, Red Hat and MySQL for launching NoSoftwarePatents.com, which opposed the European Commission's proposed directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.[10] Following several years of intensive lobbying by many parties, this proposed directive was rejected by the European Parliament on July 6, 2005, with 648 out of 680 votes cast.[11][12]
For his political activities, Müller received several awards in 2005. A leading publication for intellectual property lawyers, "Managing Intellectual Property", counted Müller - along with the Chinese vice premier Wu Yi - among the "top 50 most influential people in intellectual property"[13][14] (renominated in 2006[15]). IT-focused website Silicon.com listed him among the Silicon Agenda Setters.[16] A jury of EU-focused weekly newspaper "European Voice" elected Müller as one of the "EV50 Europeans of the Year 2005", and handed him the "EU Campaigner of the Year 2005" award.[17] Jointly with the FFII, Müller received the "CNET Networks UK Technology Award" in the "Outstanding Contribution to Software Development" category.[18]
[edit] Football policy
After more than 20 years in the IT industry, Müller became involved with football (soccer) politics in 2007. He advised the Spanish football club Real Madrid with respect to a European Union policy-making initiative concerning professional sports.[19][20][21]
[edit] Google vs Oracle copyright
[edit] from Oracle
Müller published an article suggesting the possibility that Oracle's claims that Google violated their copyrights may have merit,[22] an article which was heavily criticized by two technical bloggers. According to Ed Burnette, a ZDNet blogger, Google published those files on its web site to help developers debug and test their own code.[23] ArsTechnica's Ryan Paul also said that these findings in the online codebase are also not evidence that stolen code is distributed on Android handsets.[24][25] Two days after his original assertions Mueller claimed to have found the files in the official source availability packages of device makers Motorola, LG and Samsung.[26]
[edit] from the Linux Kernel
Müller amplified[27] a HuffingtonPost article[28] by an intellectual property lawyer who suggested that Google likely violated the GPL by copying Linux header files. The accusation was dismissed by Linus Torvalds, the original author and chief architect of the Linux Kernel.[29]
[edit] Microsoft Commision
In October 2011 Müller announced on his blog that Microsoft had commissioned him to conduct a study on patents.[30]
[edit] References
- ^ [1] FOSSPatents blog
- ^ [2] http://de.linkedin.com/in/florianmueller82319
- ^ C64-Wiki page on Florian Müller's authorship (in German)
- ^ BuchJournal, issue 1(spring)/1988, p. 91, German-language, Scribd document (title and p. 91)
- ^ Mobygames credits for Warcraft II - Tides of Darkness
- ^ Mobygames credits for Diablo I
- ^ Mobygames credits for Starcraft I
- ^ FOCUS article "Online-Spiele ohne Grenzen" (in German)
- ^ Corporate website of MySQL as per January 2004 (Wayback machine)
- ^ MacWorld article "Torvalds comes out against EU patent directive"
- ^ Wikinews article on European Parliament's rejection of proposed CII directive
- ^ European Parliament report "Daily Notebook" 06-07-2005
- ^ Managing IP article "Revealed: 2005's most influential people"
- ^ ZDNet article "Anti-patent campaigner hailed as IP hero"
- ^ ManagingIP article "The most influential people of 2006" (subscriber content)
- ^ Silicon.com Agenda Setters 2005 ("Politicos" category)
- ^ EV awards winners in 2005
- ^ ZDNet article "Software patents campaigners honoured"
- ^ Der Spiegel article "Gönner und Geldwäscher" (in German)
- ^ Deutsche Welle article "Comercialización del fútbol europeo: el otro alegato" (in Spanish)
- ^ Deutsche Welle article "Fútbol europeo: el papel del dinero" (in Spanish)
- ^ http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-evidence-supports-oracles-case.html
- ^ http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/oops-no-copied-java-code-or-weapons-of-mass-destruction-found-in-android/2162
- ^ http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/01/new-alleged-evidence-of-android-infringement-isnt-a-smoking-gun.ars
- ^ http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110122054409107
- ^ http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/01/android-device-makers-distribute-oracle.html
- ^ http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/03/googles-android-faces-serious-linux.html
- ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edward-j-naughton/googles-android-contains-_b_836697.html
- ^ http://www.itworld.com/open-source/140916/android-sued-microsoft-not-linux
- ^ http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/10/study-on-worldwide-use-of-frand.html
[edit] External links
- Review by Matthew Broersma, Techworld
- NoSoftwarePatents campaign
- Florian Müller's FOSS Patents blog
- Florian Müller's FOSS Patents Twitter page
