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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."
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
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.