Slashdot Mirror
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.
Europeans, please do something. Phone you MEPs on Monday (or leave a message today and phone again on Monday).
l usions.htm
l
m l#pag
l
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!
Ireland has 2.5% of the votes on this issue. Not all MEPs turn up for votes like this, so if all the Irish MEPs turn up, their votes may make up a larger portion.
r tition?ipid=0&ilg=EN&iorig=home&imsg=
It's very important to convince the other countries to contact their MEPs. The all-country page for MEP listings is:
http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep5/owa/p_meps2.repa
Ciaran O'Riordan
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
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.
Alex Macfie <alex@cgce.net>