Lobbying For Linux

Telex4 writes "Slashdot has heard a lot lately about why software patents are bad, and the passage of the legislation in the EU. But other than the online demo and a few pictures of the demonstration outside the European Parliament, Slashdotters hear little about the real behind-the-scenes lobbying. I've just put an article up on Newsforge describing and discussing my experiences lobbying inside the Parliament that might shed a little light on what we mortal geeks can do to save ourselves. There are some accompanying photos on my web site for those who like visual aids." (NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.)

Comments

Lobby to shut down the bastards!!!

[rice_burners_suck]

I know... Let's lobby to pass legislation that any commercial organization or group that in any way threatens free software will be automatically shut down by the government. People who do so will be shot.

Organizations that lobby to pass free-software-unfriendly legislation will be shut down immediately after they begin lobbying.

Companies that write software that produces unpublicized data formats will be shut down.

People who review free software and compare it to commercial software, and who point out any sort of disadvantage to using the free software, or any advantage to using the commercial software, will be shot immediately.

Re:Cluelessness

[aardvarkjoe]

If the average Slashdotter sat down with the average politician, and each spoke about political issues, the Slashdotter would educate the politician on computer issues,

Yeah, right. The average slashdotter would claim superior knowledge of every aspect of politics, and then call the politician a right-wing Bush-loving freedom-hating corporate whore if the politician disagreed on any point.

Re:About software patents...

[Chompster]

What? That's ridiculous!!!!!

Oh.. that's MY post. Oops.

-Chompster