Slashdot Mirror
Linus, Monty, Rasmus: No Software Patents
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."
Here is a clickable link: htttp://www.NoSoftwarePatents.com.com
That NoSoftwarePatents.com link appears to be broken.
cat
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
There is in Europe right now some sympathetic attention on the political level in many contries. The Irish leaderships proposal could fall if Poland is voting against as they have resently said they would .
I think that the timing of this appeal has something to do with the current situation. The Directive is to be voted on soon
That's already been taking care of with the article on The Economist. That's about the only periodical I can think of where heads of state and CEOs both read (and who both appear in the letters section from time to time).
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
They will listen and either agree or deside to shut you up.
Ok i think it's looking like a close run thing
According to this site
there are 278 allied for patents.
and 269+ allied against.
The European People's Party and European Democrats (EPP-ED) remains the largest party in the parliament with 278 seats. The EPP-ED brings together Christian Democrat, conservative and other mainstream centre and centre-right political forces from across the twenty-five EU member states. The UK's Conservative Party MEPs are attached to the EPP-ED.
The Party of European Socialists (PES) is the second largest party in the parliament with 199 MEPs. The PES brings together the socialist, social democratic and Labour parties in the parliament. The UK's Labour MEPs are members of the PES.
The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) brings together European political parties with common liberal and democratic ideals. This group was newly formed from the European Liberal and Democrat Reform group (ELDR) after the June 2004 elections. Despite only having 67 MEPs, which is relatively small compared with the EPP-ED and PES, the ALDE often holds the balance of power in crucial votes. The UK's Liberal Democrats are members of the ALDE and the current President of the ALDE is the UK's Graham Watson.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) is the political grouping to represent green parties and parties of stateless nations in the parliament. The UK has two Green party MEPs and the SNP and Plaid Cymru MEPs are also members of this group.
The European United Left/ Nordic Green Left (EUL/NGL) is a socialist and communist group within the parliament. (go on you reds)
The Union for Europe of the Nations (UEN) is an anti-federal group of MEPs from parties on the right of the political spectrum.
The Independence and Democracy group (formerly known as the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD)) is critical of further European integration and centralisation and favours the creation of a Europe of Nation States. The UK's UKIP MEPs are attached to this group.
Wow, it's just like a bush kerry, but with less blood and more money involved.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The U.S. never officially adopted software patents. The U.S. Supreme Court always ruled that software for a general-purpose digital computer is not statutory material for a patent. Lower court decisions appear to have contradicted the Supreme Court, and the USPTO has certainly granted many patents like the ones the Supreme Court struck down, but software patents have never been formally legalized. If the EU formally legalizes software patents, they will precede the U.S. in doing so.
The image put out by the NoSoftwarePatents.com organization is detrimental to the cause:
Has anyone looked at the immature banners that are provided by NoSoftwarePatents.com? The European banner is misspelled: Europe's better off without software patents. Learn the difference between a contraction and a possessive before making banners to be distributed around the world. The other notable one is "Stop the patent mafia!" That may be a valid analogy, but it is so childish that no one will take it seriously. Then, a barely readable sign surrounded by flowers.
The advocates of this side tend to cite naive outrageous one-sided claims, then wonder why businessmen and politicians don't get the message. Some of the over-hyped Slashdot headines serve as good examples. Pictures of students protesting isn't going to sway anyone's opinion. Try a picture of a company losing money because everything they try to do is covered by some trivial patent.
Absolutely none.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
... be it those three or their political opposition.
The reason is really very very simple...
politics and machine switching logic are way big time different things.
There are two ways to discover gravity. drop and apple or step off a cliff.
Either was gravity is going to take charge.
The same applied to software.
The difference here is that it seems half of the people with influence are insisting on doing it the harder and more deadly way. While the others are trying to present apple dropping evidence to those who find that evidence to weak to accept and respond with smart ass comments about making apple pie, again and again... they will try again next year if they don't kill someone this year....
So there is really only ONE WAY to get the hard reality across to the death seekers.... give them death...
ALOT OF IT!!!
bring to a hault all software development and use of anything that is not patented yet and don't pay for anything that is....
This can be bigger and better than the itty bitty "boston tea party". And it can make the boston tea party analogy hardly used...
So I'm being asked now..... how would it be possible to have such a party, that those against patents on software would most certainly attend?
Any ideas? Or is there a fear that most will wimp out?