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European Software Patents Vote Now June 30th
brenno writes "On June 30th the European Parliament will vote about the much feared software patents. Initially this vote was expected in September, but after a committee hearing British Labor Member of European Parliament Arlene McCarthy scheduled this topic to be dealt with next week. This leaves us with virtually no time to explain to parliament members about the dangers (read all about this at the FFII website). The only thing that you can do is to write to your member of parliament telling what you think and how it endangers free software and how odd it is that on one hand Europe was embracing open source and on the other hand they are putting it in danger. Please step in and undertake some action. Read all about it and write your representative."
...or simpy wake up to the fact that democracy (as it is enacted in Europe and the USA) just doesn't work, the politicians have all been captured by special interests and no longer serve the people, and the only thing that will work is direct action, starting with massive civil disobedience.
The EU != Britain, cretin.
What is your alternative to democracy?
I still prefer it over a dictatorial regime.
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1. Mrs AHERN, Nuala
Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
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2. Mr ANDREWS, Niall
Union for Europe of the Nations Group
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3. Mrs BANOTTI, Mary Elizabeth
Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
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4. Mr COLLINS, Gerard
Union for Europe of the Nations Group
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5. Mr COX, Pat
Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party
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6. Mr CROWLEY, Brian
Union for Europe of the Nations Group
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7. Mr CUSHNAHAN, John Walls
Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
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8. Mr DE ROSSA, Proinsias
Group of the Party of European Socialists
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9. Mrs DOYLE, Avril
Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
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10. Mr FITZSIMONS, James (Jim)
Union for Europe of the Nations Group
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11. Mr HYLAND, Liam
Union for Europe of the Nations Group
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12. Mr McCARTIN, John Joseph
Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
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13. Mrs McKENNA, Patricia
Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
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14. Mr O' NEACHTAIN, Sean
Union for Europe of the Nations Group
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15. Mrs SCALLON, Dana Rosemary
Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
Please take the time to send them a letter, or even a mail. This really is a terrible proposal, and the last thing open source and small software developers need, is more software patents with an expanded range.Europeans, please do something. Phone you MEPs on Monday (or leave a message today and phone again on Monday).
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Patents are going to ruin the software industry by handing even more power to the companies that have vast bank accounts and legal team (i.e. the ones that really don't need this extra power).
Read about the affects of patents at:
http://www.softwarepatents.co.uk/
Read the UK patent office's "consultation on software patents":
http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/consultations/conc
Examples of bad or missused software patents:
http://www.base.com/software-patents/examples.htm
Bad EU patents that have already been issued:
http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/samples/index.en.ht
(these aren't really enforcable until software patents become clearly legal)
A good proposed amendment:
http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/epc52/index.en.htm
(tell you MEPs to look at this, we have to unite with a definite proposal. Simply saying "we don't want software patents" doesn't give an MEP much to say)
Use the phone. Email is easily ignored. You'll often get answering machines so think of a short useful message to leave, mention the proposed amendment and tell them your sending them an email with the details.
Ciaran O'Riordan
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
and the ones which focus entirely on the US - the internet isnt just the US you know..
anyway the EU is more than just britain. you fool
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
Europarl :_(....
of this list who do i write to all the parties? i dont remember electing any of them to represent me
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
I emailed my MEPs, and got three personal replies within a day.
The first of those replies was within half an hour, and the MEP in question did actually know something about the issue.
Your cynicism is misplaced, as far as the people I contacted were concerned. Those emails weren't wasted, as long as the representitives in question realise there is a HUGE number of people against software patents in Europe. But this won't happen if everyone just sits on their arses and does nothing, or goes and throws a brick through the nearest McDonalds window instead.
There is one thing that matters more to politicians than money - votes.
They really don't like doing unpopular things, or at least getting caught doing unpopular things - it loses them their jobs.
LOL! Where are all the "evil, stupid, fascist European" posts? Ahhh, yes, only AMERICA is "evil, stupid, fascist" and out to get us. Only America has stupid patent and copyright laws and (Londoners cover your ears and ignore those cameras on the street corners) violate percieved rights. Whatta joke. Bunch of lamers.
Derek
Writing letters by itself has never made any difference. Pols are more afraid of party whips than they are of the odd disgruntled constituent.
I know of only two instances where the govt. were forced to back down quickly over an issue without wasting everybody's time trying to cover their asses:
1) The Poll Tax riots during the Thatcher era.
2) The lorry driver's blockade of the petrol depots, widely and visibly supported by the public during the current New Labour govvernment.
They almost backed down over the Iraq war but it dragged on too long and public opposition waned, which the government had been banking on (see temporary sig).
It's clear from this that the only thing that does make a difference is positive action. Show your anger in the form of getting together on mass and picketing the House of Commons. Unfortunately this means that to get anything done you have to get the support of a *lot* of people. Issues that only affect (or are only of interest to) a small minority are doomed from the start and that's that.
Government is like a giant steamroller. It has a huge amount of inertia and so to stop it you need to meet it with a huge amount of mass.
These issues about the effectiveness of parliamentary democracy have come into focus now because of the complete absence of any effective opposition since the Tories were crushed.
I advocate replacing the current system of party-controlled parliamentary democracy with a system of jury-style appointment, with relatively short terms and no chance of immediate re-appointment on expiry. No more professional politicians. And no more demagogues. People who seek power are usually least fit to wield it. And there must be less centralisation of power which must be devolved to a more local level, the more local the better.
Government by direct consensus only. And there must be checks and balances to limit the incredible political power of the civil service
--
Naturally the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.
Thank you for your reply.
You reminded me of something I forgot.
And btw, I most certainly don't think that politicians are always right, as I don't think the public is always right.
If you can tell me where you got that quote, I will be grateful.
Here are some more that might be of interest:
Law
"No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom." -- Mahatma Ghandi
"Probably all laws are useless; for good men do not want laws at all, and bad men are made no better by them." -- Demonax - (Roman philosopher c. 150 A.D.)
"More laws, less justice." -- Marcus Tullius Ciceroca (42 BC)
Democracy
"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic." --Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." -- James Bovard, (1994)
Politicans and Government
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." -- Albert Camus (1913-1960)
"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology. " -- Michael Parenti (and it's just as true for the UK)
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." "The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." -- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945
"The technological capacities the government is acquiring and the removal of basic legal checks move us in a direction that was never possible 20 years ago. Does this bring us a lot closer to 1984? Absolutely." -- Tim Edgar, legislative counsel for the ACLU
"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." -- Milton Friedman
Outcomes
"The search of the young today is more specific than the ancient search for the Holy Grail. The search of the youth today is for ways and means to make the machine - and the vast bureaucracy of the corporation state and of government that runs that machine - the servant of man . That is the revolution that is coming. It could be a revolution in the nature of an explosive political regeneration. It depends on how wise the Establishment is. If, with its stockpile of arms, it resolves to suppress the dissenters, America will face, I fear, an awful ordeal." -- William O. Douglas, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice (again, just as true of the UK).
"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny." --Thomas Jefferson
Regarding ancient Athens: "In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all - security, comfort and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again." -- Edward Gibbon
I am grateful for Vincent Tijms' web site, from which I selected all the above quotations.
Alex Macfie <alex@cgce.net>
I just heard this morning from Dutch MEP Erik Meijer that the voting about this issue will be postponed again until september. So we have some more time to react.
For Dutch readers, here is an interesting discussion about the proposal for software patents:
http://www.webwereld.nl/nieuws/15381.phtml
A list of Dutch MEPs including most email addresses can be found here:
http://www.vosoft.nl/parlementariers.html
Of course the politicans will vote wrong, when the industry tells them to, and you sit quiet and whine. Democracy works, but requires a lot of work. I guess many politicans think people want software patents. Lets tell them how it really is.
Well no, they don't think that at all - since they have already received an enormous number of written representations and petition signatures demonstrating the opposite.
Maybe you didn't hear, but the entire basis on which the officials sponsoring this leglsation have decided to completely ignore public opinion is, ludicrously, that a *financial majority*, i.e. big business *is* in favour, and so the public can just go fuck themselves.
So I hardly think that further outraged letters will do any good at all. In fact given their apparently complete capture by special interests I don't think anything will work - except, maybe, getting round there in person with baseball bats, pitchforks etc. and "reminding" them of who they are supposed to be working for.