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Dutch Parliament Reverses Software Patent Vote
Sanity writes "On May 18th, by a thin majority, the European Council of Ministers voted in favor of throwing out the European Parliament's efforts to keep software patents out of Europe. According to an FFII press release, the Dutch Parliament yesterday voted to change its Minister's vote, which was in favor, to an abstension. This is an unprecidented move and a great coup for those fighting against software patents, never before has a country reversed a vote in this manner. While this is not sufficient to reverse the decision of the Council of Ministers, it does pave the way for other countries, many of which were pressured into an affirmative vote, to do the same. Now is the time for citizens of the EU to put pressure on their national governments to follow the Dutch lead."
Try reading past the first three words of the story you twat.
Hup Holland Hup! Staan we toch weer op de kaart!
Italy's government was going to protest, but changed three times over the months between the votes.
Then there's Spain. I find the phrase "undermine political credibility in Europe" to be a laughable concept when an entire country changes its majority party in a radical direction because of a single terrorist bombing.
Please help metamoderate.
Vrije Universiteit doesn't give FUCK to anyone, why should we care about them?
"Starts with patents and ends with your freedom." Because really, software patents are the mechanism by which governments crack down on their citizens. Absolutely.
Oh and the European legislation certainly is stealthy, except for it being widely covered in news stories, well, kind of like this one. So you're spot on once again.
And ALL software patents are evil. Not just the stupid ones, but the ones in which actual non-obvious invention is ocurring. Evil. Freedom reducing evil. Because once someone invents something, it becomes the property of everyone, including every backroom shyster from here to China wanting to make a buck of someone elses ideas.
Slashdot groupthink gives you +5 Insightful!
You obviously don't know much about history, do you? Most great inventions where created by large corporations that made all of that R&D possible. Most of those inventors benefitted *greatly* from those inventions (but not all). Or in many cases, a small guy invented something, then it was brought to market by a corporation which had the money to make it happen. Somehow, I don't see a guy in his garage inventing the next breakthrough in microprocessor technology, or space flight, or medicine, then giving it away. That's a fairy tale.
European Soccer Championship
The what? Soccer Championship? Wassat? I think you mean Euro 2004 and I can assure the Dutch were no where as pissed off as us English were when we was robbed by the fucking Swiss greengrocer bastard cocksucker of a referee. Cunt.