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Linus, Monty, Rasmus: No Software Patents

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stick-to-your-guns dept.

Jan Wildeboer writes "The three most famous European authors of open-source software have issued an appeal against software patents on NoSoftwarePatents.com. Linus Torvalds (Linux), Michael "Monty" Widenius (MySQL) and Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) urge the EU Council, which will convene later in the week, not to adopt a draft directive on software patents that they consider "deceptive, dangerous, and democratically illegitimate". They also call on the Internet community to express solidarity by placing NoSoftwarePatents.com links and banners on many Web sites."

3 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ineffectual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    They need to tell Chirac and Schroder that Bush is for the patents. They will certainly be against it then ;-)

  2. Why doesn't the.... by JaJ_D · · Score: 3, Funny
    ...open source community fight fire with fire and:
    • Set up a standalone trust/charity/not for profit organisations
    • Patent various aspects of the OS code/world and any new stuff that's developed
    • Take out the patents in the major places (e.g. us/eu etc.)
    • Assign the patents to the above organisation
    • State that the software patents can only be used in OS products or have to be licenced from the above organisation
    • Team up with a bunch of laywers to tackle anyone who uses the patents without permission (no win no fee)
    • And fight, head-on, the bigger organsiation
    The monies from licensing fee can then be used to develop/promote/move forward the OS community

    Look the OS community has proved that we can write good software and fight hard when we need to. We have also shown that we can organise disperate people in various places, timezones, languages etc. and form them into a very effective development team. Now why don't we do the same for patents and a) protect ourselves and b) fight back!

    Hell if anyone else is interested in helping I am more than happy to try and setup the organisations (UK or worldwide), e.g. do the leg work, talk to people etc..

    what do people think?

    Jaj
  3. Re:It's a nice idea, but by cortana · · Score: 2, Funny

    > Virtually all involved parties now claim that they are against software patents,
    > even those who are in favour of them!

    It's good to see that the ministers of the European Union are carrying on Europe's grand tradition of simple, transparent and honest politiking.