Elect NoSoftwarePatents as European Of The Year

Aargh writes "Every year a public Internet poll is taken to vote for, amongst others, the "European of the Year". This year, the founder of NoSoftwarePatents.com has been selected as a candidate. Taken from the NoSoftwarePatents.com site: "We now have a first-rate opportunity to make political leaders, media and citizens all over the world realize the significance of our cause. Please give us your vote, and help us gain more votes, so that the founder of the NoSoftwarePatents campaign be elected as the new 'European of the Year'." Non-europeans can also vote, so why dont we unleash the slashdot hordes?" Mr. Mueller had been exchanging e-mails recently on this subject; thanks to an introduction from Kaj Arnö. I truly do think that given his, and the organization's work that they deserve to win. Check out the celebrity endorsements as well. *grin* Also, worth reading their voting guide if you are going to vote.

Comments

Re:Also read the reasons for their nominations

[ErrorBase]

If you took the time to actually read the voting recommendations, you'll see that some of the proposed candidates are actually generated at random. actually encouraging to pick one of your own choice. but helpful for the decision impaired.

Re:Do not vote if you have no clue

[SimilarityEngine]

There are some suggestions on the NoSoftwarePatents site, if you're really stuck for choice. Obviously, read the justification under each one and see if you agree...

Re:Do not vote if you have no clue

[Znork]

"Well, this is exactly the way not to go."

The random recommendations are just that; random. New randomization each time you load the page. Try it a few times.

Statistically, people voting using only the nosoftwarepatents recommendations should favor none of the candidates in the unrelated polls, so as far as avoiding any undesired deviations in a poll with these rules I think that's the best it can get.

Why we recommend the Spanish PM,not the Polish guy

[FlorianMueller]

It's true that the Polish government was extremely helpful. However, the Polish candidate for Statesman of the Year wasn't helpful at all. He's the president, but all of the help came from the executive government, which is headed by the prime minister (at the time that was Marek Belka), and mostly from deputy minister Wlodzimierz Marcinski. We discussed the voting recommendations with our Polish activists who are quite familiar with how the decisions were taken within the Polish government.

Here's why I stepped down and why I came back

[FlorianMueller]

It's quite simple: I would have stayed in the fight on a continuous basis if I had seen enough of a support from medium-sized companies to this cause. I had communicated some requirements, and those were primarily about a war chest that I considered necessary in order to influence the political process. Except for MySQL, I didn't get much support for that more ambitious plan, and then I decided that if others thought their time and money was better spent on something else, I'd do it the same way.

Claiming that I returned when we were on the winning track is the opposite of what happened. On June 20, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament voted on the software patent directive, and many essential amendments to the proposed bill (in order to exclude software from the scope of patentable subject matter) fell through. When the members of the committee voted at the end whether the parliament should accept or reject the bill (accepting meaning that it would still have gone back to the EU Council and possibly to conciliation), 16 voted for and only 10 against the proposal.

In that precarious situation, a group of companies actually did provide the kind of support that I became involved again for the last two weeks before the plenary vote. Like in almost all parliaments, it's the plenary that takes the actual decision, and the committee sort of prepares the plenary vote (in some parliaments, if the committee decides in a certain way, it's practically a done deal because people in the plenary just take the official party position, but in the European Parliament, the plenary may still decide differently).

I didn't position myself as the leader of our movement in the European Parliament at that stage. I took some initiatives and met various politicians and aides, and the FFII was really in charge.

Someone is not a "glory hog" because several independent juries nominate him for certain awards and honors. There's some information on those awards and honors toward the bottom of my backgrounder page on the NoSoftwarePatents.com site, and especially about how I personally view those nominations. I also explained that at great length in an email that the FFII sent out to all of its registered supporters.