Sites Shut Down to Protest Software Patents

blueser writes "I went today to TUTOS homepage to check for a newer version, and I was surprised to see that the author replaced the homepage by a 'Closed because of Software-Patents' page, with a brief explanation." Just one site? that's hardly a big deal, but there's more. maliabu writes "Knoppix is closed, apparently waiting for the European Parliament to decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called 'software patents' in Europe." And still more. SLbigE writes "The Wine HQ website has temporarily shut down its webpage in protest to a proposed law in Europe regarding Software Patents." There's many more sites as well, these were just the first I was alerted to, Feel free to note some more in comments. Looks like they're doing a good job of illustrating what could be lost soon.

Comments

Vote delayed

[mrew]

Apparently this protest (and the physical one) may have had some effect, in that the EU vote has been delayed according to LWN. Let's hope this additional time is beneficial to the anti-patent cause...

Re: Slashdot is not down

[brokencomputer]

We have software patent laws in the US and slashdot is in the US so slashdot would be protesting a law that were already enacted in the US. I dont think it would be helpful to shut down slashdot. if slashdot were shut down, a lot of people would not know about the protest and lots of other news.

Re:Rpm find

[rknop]

These site shutting down in protest is not very professional. This is one of the problems with the free software community, politics plays too heavy of a role in their actions.

If you are too timid to take actions that are going to inconvenience somebody you will never be noticed. Software patents are serious. You lose your Linux dodad today; software patents could eventually make you lose them forever.

For instance, do you really believe that the labor movement would ever have gotten anywhere if they never held any strikes? That the civil rights movement would have gotten anywhere if they never got in anybody's face?

The road to hell is paved with business as usual. Shutting down your websites may be "unprofessional", but it makes a meaningful protest that gets across the point of just how serious these sites believe the issue is.

-Rob

Change the Law

[MichaelCrawford]

The section of my article called Change the Law in Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads explains steps you can take to change the laws.

While it focusses on reforming copyright laws, most of what I say applies to patents. Note that in the U.S. at least, patents have the same legal foundation as copyrights, being authorized by the same clause in the Constitution.

The steps I suggest are:

• Speak Out
• Vote
• Write to Your Elected Representatives
• Donate Money to Political Campaigns
• Support Campaign Finance Reform
• Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Practice Civil Disobedience

Well I don't think the EFF deals with patents but they do a lot of other good work.

The above article is going to be put under a Creative Commons license to encourage copying as soon as I have the final draft done. I expect that to happen this weekend. So check back and copy the article to other websites when it's ready.

Also I closed my consulting business website a couple days ago and will keep it that way a couple more days.

While I don't get a huge amount of traffic to my homepage, I also don't expect most of the people visiting it to already be free software enthusiasts who know all about the patent controversy.