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Demonstration Against Software Patents in Europe

Posted by michael on from the fighting-the-good-fight dept.

bram.be writes "On April 14, FFII is organising a walking demonstration in Brussels against the legalisation of software patents in Europe, as well as a legislation benchmarking conference. Like in August last year, these events will be accompanied by an online demonstration whereby webmasters are asked to close their websites in protest. The reason for the renewed protest is that after the European Parliament voted for a great directive, it is now the Council of Minister's turn, whose working party proposes as 'compromise' to simply discard all good amendments and on top of that to even make program publication an infringement. Already more then 1300 sites participate in the online demonstration. Among them are some big sites like KDE, the GNU Project and the Gimp. Also, on April 15 the European Greens/EFA group is organising a Euro-LUG party inside the European Parliament, 'with a view to enhance the networking among the free software community in Europe [...], to inform the EP about what free software is, how it works and which ideas lie behind.' Speakers will include Gwen Hinze (EFF), Jon Lech Johansen (DeCSS), Georg Greve (FSF Europe and Alan Cox. Prior registration is mandatory for this event."

9 of 374 comments (clear)

  1. lol by Grant29 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ths Gimp in a walking demonstration. The visuals are killing me...

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  2. Walking? Booo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Can't we just DDoS their servers to show them we mean business... err, wait, we're linking to them on Slashdot! Already done!

  3. Re:My favorite arguement against is... by dolo666 · · Score: 2, Funny

    > you have to dumb things down for lawmakers to understand what they're dealing with

    I don't buy that for one second; ever read legalese?

  4. Re:Here it comes by Jesrad · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'm french, you insensitive clod ! Your "socialists" are more liberal than our right wing !

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  5. Let's hope not... by rsilvergun · · Score: 2, Funny

    if they do, the entire demonstration will probably slow down so much that nobody can get to it :)

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  6. unclosed parenthetical statements by sampowers · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sometimes, I like to get a piece of paper and just fill it up with right parenthesis, because of all the unfinished parenthetical statements in the world, to balance the universe.

  7. Re:The law is too complicated by krumms · · Score: 2, Funny

    Because pr0n would be illegal, you insensitive clod.

  8. Re:online demonstration by peeledback · · Score: 2, Funny

    But then what will I do for a week? I'm not used to having a social life, how can i start now? damn patents are ruining my life! :)

  9. Re:We need a contingency plan by focitrixilous+P · · Score: 2, Funny

    Very nice post. I think it's true that Big Business runs the world right now, and a software union is needed. Free Software Union or somthing. I've often wondered why software devlopers have no union. (I'm still in school, years away from such things) Something more formally organized then the slashdot community, a true union of all coders who think that not every little snippet of code can be universally patented. Specific code can be, I concede, but the concept of something is open.

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