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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.)
Time is running out. We will not stop this directive but we can support important amendments filed by some MEPs in order to get a sufficient directive.
p ar tition?ipid=0&ilg=EN&iorig=home&imsg=
l en 0309/index.en.html/ eubsa-swpat0202/plen 0309/kond/index.en.html
a t0202/tech /index.en.html
a t0202/prog /index.en.html
p at0202/itop /index.en.html
Adresses of EU - representatives
http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep5/owa/p_meps2.re
personal > telephone call > Fax > letter > email
The directive is called COM(02)92, it will be voted on Wednesday.
Info about Amendments (please directly refer to these, no general texts, the first link is a must read):
http://swpat.ffii.org/papiere/eubsa-swpat0202/p
http://swpat.ffii.org/papiere
It is especially useful to support Mrs. Kauppi against patent radical Wurmling in the conservative group
http://swpat.ffii.org/#wuermeling-pr030919
Background
General:
http://swpat.ffii.org/analyse/index.de.html
Technical contribution (what is really meant, we want a definition in the directive based on the "natural forces" theory):
http://swpat.ffii.org/papiere/eubsa-swp
Program claims (dangerous for web site owners):
http://swpat.ffii.org/papiere/eubsa-swp
Interoperability (support ITRE against Juri proposal)
http://swpat.ffii.org/papiere/eubsa-sw
Don't write to Green party members or EFA as they are convinced yet, focus on Liberals, Conservative(Finnish MEP Kauppi has made good amendments)
and Social democrats
One of the funniest arguments was Wurmling's text who stated that Eolas vs. Microsoft showed best practise for SME. Incompetence and lies rule within the EU parliament. We shall not let patent lawyer interest groups win this battle.
The debate over the use of open-source software is underway, with the ALP adopting a strong pro open-source policy.
It will be interesting to see if they actually do anything about it when the conservatives finally get dumped.
In Vienna 400 demonstrated.
Similar events will be organized across Europe, in Madrid, Poland, Duesseldorf, Berlin, Paris, ...
Sept 23 there will be a demonstration in Strassbourg. And another Online demo will be started.
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/InfoStands
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/OnlineDemo
In Vienna 400 demonstrated.
This number seems to rise every time I read about it.
Let's keep it at reasonable 300, because this is the official estimation of the organizers.
The headline is crap. It is not even about Open Source but about the future of informations society at large, because shareware programmers and IT giants (see: MS vs. Eolas) are targeted as well.
Id you know a European language it is very helpful if you could translate part of the thing on Sunday. (Erik needs this by monday morning. There are persons working on it, help is needed help for it, subscribe to the translations mailing list and the info page for more info).
Once doing that whetted your appetite for coming to Strasbourg (there is a demo), help is also appreciated of distributing this inside the parliament (write to europarl ATt ffii DOtT org or call +49-174-7313590, sleeping between 1 am and 9 am CET).
Also note that before there are some supporting events in Greece, Stuttgart and Berlin.