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"Maybe MS will invade us first when the EU starts a war against them :P"

Nope, they already own you. Look who bribed^H^H^H^H^H^H"sponsored" your government's presidency of the EU while the big push for software patents was going on.

Has your government no pride ?

There's also the small matter of the EU budget failing its financial audit for the tenth year running. They don't even use double-entry book keeping! So we can safely assume that much of that 99 billion is not going where it's supposed to go.

Worse than USA
- Are the Europeans arse-lickers that follow suit. The stupid moronic "Oirish" are the first.
Bunch of beggars keen to lick any American Arse - and have their crappy Presidency be sponsored by Microsoft. Then you have the pathetic British Government.

I mean we have a subservient Fag - the Prime Minister; keen to do whatever Bush gets him to do. And his moron cabinet are the first to implement anything that is destructive to the IT workforce of this country (as if IR-35, fast-track-visa, outsourcing wasn't enough). So why should they oppose the coming patent law? They "abstain" - typical of the English people (hear nothing, see nothing)

The level of ignorance here is appauling. Ask anyone in IT what is Open Source :
"Ish shumfing to do wiv a Penguin innit?" - no joke.

They rather blow up animal laboratories in order to save a guinea-pigs than to care for their own people.

Then we move into mainland europe and the list of yankeephiles goes on. The spineless Austrians. The stupid Italians. The boring Belgians. The cowardly Dutch. The perverted Swiss. The utterly ignorant Greeks ... etc

Interesting to observe that those nations that are often criticized and mocked by America and the UK - Germany and France. They had the decency to remain strongly opposed to this most absurd law. Theirs is a country with guts to speak for the people. Fuck what the world-raping evil corporations wants - what is wrong is wrong.

France had the guts to oppose the invasion of Iraq under such a false pretext - amongst all pressures.

Seems like theirs is more of a true democracy than the mega-corp controlled United States (and its slaves arse-licking Europeans).

This is not a critique against the American people - as many are seriously trying but feel powerless - stuck against a impossible Force. This is a critique against the faceless European arse-lickers listed above.

Kudos to the people and government of the countries that having been voting against the legislation.

You're right, for now, on the US!=World issue. I'm European (Portuguese). The problem is that discussion on our European software patent law is still on the table. The chance of having a strict, not reverse engeneering allowing software patent law is still in sight. Guess who's pushing some big bucks for it to be a reality...

Should this law come to be a reality, any DVD Jon-to-be would be prosecuted for patent infringement this side of the pond and by violating the DMCA in the US.

The only reason that the vote was passed in the first place was because the then European presidency in Ireland was being sponsered by Microsoft.

And people are attempting to change these rules, for just the reasons that this debaukle has highlighted, regarding both the reversal of the parliments decisions by the council and the reversal of the dutch vote.

Hell, Microsoft's buying the EU president. Look at http://www.eu2004.ie/sitetools/sponsorship.asp

Sponsors of the Irish Presidency
The Irish Presidency has buckled under the interests of American Companies. Those big American Companies will profit from software patents, but it is a very bad deal for innovation in European SMEs. Additionally, this way of working is a violation of the Parliament. As such, we must make sure that after the elections there will again be a majority in the European Parliament that is willing to show its teeth.
In addition, the patent taxes in Ireland is 0%, that means that a lot of American Companies have their European Site there, and has became on of the main software exporters in Europe. ( software developed elsewhere in the world ). Even could be displaced to Ireland profits from other european countries to avoid paying taxes.

We europeans have luck because the European Parlament decided against software patents. Now this is in jeopardy.
The patent officials in the Commission and Council are abusing the legislative process of the EU. Their convoluted and misleading Patent Newspeak, negotiated in intransparent backroom dealings, is an insult to the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of Regions and the innumerable experts and concerned citizens who have engaged in serious investigations on this directive project. It is unacceptable that the Council is throwing away all their hard work without any substantial justification whatsoever.
One to blame is the Irish Presidence, Sponsored by Microsoft.
FFII web site with more info about software patents.
Soon there will be ellections for the European Parlament, take care of what you vote and if you have the ocasion, ask the politians about this issue.

My understanding of what happend is something like:

• The patent office comes out with a wishlist.
• The EU Parliment votes it down and puts some strict limits on software patents.
• The Parliment vote is passed to some bureaucrats to clean up and make into 'proper' laws (it's now out of the Parliament's hands).
• The bureaucrats rip out all of the changes made by parliament, and add a few options that weren't even in there to begin with.
• The president -- currently held by Ireland -- (and literally sponsored by Microsoft) manages to get his EU Council of Ministers to accept this bureaucrat-mangled edit.

Very recently two new sponsors for the irish precidency appeared, as can be see on their sponsors web page. These are Microsoft and Dell. Is this just a coincidence?