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European Software Patents Vote Now June 30th 38

Posted by timothy from the danger-danger dept.
brenno writes "On June 30th the European Parliament will vote about the much feared software patents. Initially this vote was expected in September, but after a committee hearing British Labor Member of European Parliament Arlene McCarthy scheduled this topic to be dealt with next week. This leaves us with virtually no time to explain to parliament members about the dangers (read all about this at the FFII website). The only thing that you can do is to write to your member of parliament telling what you think and how it endangers free software and how odd it is that on one hand Europe was embracing open source and on the other hand they are putting it in danger. Please step in and undertake some action. Read all about it and write your representative."
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European Software Patents Vote Now June 30th More

European Software Patents Vote Now June 30th

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  • Write a pointless letter that will be ignored... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ralphclark ( 11346 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @12:14PM (#6262183) Journal
    ...or simpy wake up to the fact that democracy (as it is enacted in Europe and the USA) just doesn't work, the politicians have all been captured by special interests and no longer serve the people, and the only thing that will work is direct action, starting with massive civil disobedience.
    • What is your alternative to democracy?
      I still prefer it over a dictatorial regime.
      • What we have now is effectively dictatorial. What I want is an end to all dictators. What I want is a government that is accountable to its electors on a daily basis, government by electoral consensus: a system of government that can't be bought by big money. And an an end to all personal ambition in politics. There must be no hidden agendas for those we place in positions of responsibility. I am sick to death of having my cheese moved around by people over whom I have no control. Don't get me started.
        • What we have now is effectively dictatorial.
          Perhaps, but sometimes unpopular laws has to be made. e.g. smoking is unhealthy, therefor it's banned in pubs.

          What I want is an end to all dictators.
          So do I.

          What I want is a government that is accountable to its electors on a daily basis,
          Do you really want that? If you do this, those who are elected (or want to be elected) will be even more concerned with how to please the voters. They will only do the things that the voters want, and perhaps e.g.

          • I do always cast my vote whenever the time comes and I have on several occasions written to my parliamentary representatives about various issues. None of which ever makes a damn bit of difference because all they ever want to do is follow the party whip (local MPs and MEPs) or pursue their own nefarious agenda (eg. Arlene McCarthy). Written responses - when they even bother - tend to be either bland, misleading reassurances or else just a stiff re-statement of party policy.

            If you get clear support from

            • Thank you for your reply.
              You reminded me of something I forgot.
              And btw, I most certainly don't think that politicians are always right, as I don't think the public is always right.
              If you can tell me where you got that quote, I will be grateful.
              • I don't remember where I got it originally but if you google for the final sentence (in double quotes, to force "phrase" mode) you will see a lot of sites carrying the same quotation.

                Here are some more that might be of interest:

                Law

                "No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom." -- Mahatma Ghandi

                "Probably all laws are useless; for good men do not want laws at all, and bad men are made no better by them." -- Demonax - (Roman philosopher c. 150 A.D.)

                "More laws, less justice." -

        • How moronic does somebody have to be, to moderate the above comment "overrated"? Do we have chimpanzees for moderators now? Hamsters?
    • I emailed my MEPs, and got three personal replies within a day.

      The first of those replies was within half an hour, and the MEP in question did actually know something about the issue.

      Your cynicism is misplaced, as far as the people I contacted were concerned. Those emails weren't wasted, as long as the representitives in question realise there is a HUGE number of people against software patents in Europe. But this won't happen if everyone just sits on their arses and does nothing, or goes and throws a bri
      • The pols rely on our willingness to sit on our asses and take whatever is handed down. Mindless violence isn't the answer. Co-ordinated public demonstration *is*.

        Writing letters by itself has never made any difference. Pols are more afraid of party whips than they are of the odd disgruntled constituent.

        I know of only two instances where the govt. were forced to back down quickly over an issue without wasting everybody's time trying to cover their asses:

        1) The Poll Tax riots during the Thatcher era.
        2)

    • Of course the politicans will vote wrong, when the industry tells them to, and you sit quiet and whine. Democracy works, but requires a lot of work. I guess many politicans think people want software patents. Lets tell them how it really is.
      • Well no, they don't think that at all - since they have already received an enormous number of written representations and petition signatures demonstrating the opposite.

        Maybe you didn't hear, but the entire basis on which the officials sponsoring this leglsation have decided to completely ignore public opinion is, ludicrously, that a *financial majority*, i.e. big business *is* in favour, and so the public can just go fuck themselves.

        So I hardly think that further outraged letters will do any good at all
  • As I posted at my blog posting on the issue [taint.org]:

    If you are a European and bothered by software patents, now is the time to write to (or even email) MEPs asking them to oppose this directive; it's the 'proposed software patentability directive as amended by JURI' (COM(2002)92 2002/0047). The letter should support the

    FFII/Eurolinux [ffii.org] and/or Green position.

    Irish voters: here's the list of Irish MEPs [eu.int]:

    • 1. Mrs AHERN, Nuala Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
    • 2. Mr ANDREWS, Niall Union for

  • Learn and do (Score:4, Informative)

    by ciaran_o_riordan ( 662132 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @03:34PM (#6263251) Homepage
    Europeans, please do something. Phone you MEPs on Monday (or leave a message today and phone again on Monday).

    Patents are going to ruin the software industry by handing even more power to the companies that have vast bank accounts and legal team (i.e. the ones that really don't need this extra power).

    Read about the affects of patents at:
    http://www.softwarepatents.co.uk/ [softwarepatents.co.uk]

    Read the UK patent office's "consultation on software patents":
    http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/consultations/concl usions.htm [patent.gov.uk]

    Examples of bad or missused software patents:
    http://www.base.com/software-patents/examples.html [base.com]

    Bad EU patents that have already been issued:
    http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/samples/index.en.htm l#pag [ffii.org]
    (these aren't really enforcable until software patents become clearly legal)

    A good proposed amendment:
    http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/epc52/index.en.html [ffii.org]
    (tell you MEPs to look at this, we have to unite with a definite proposal. Simply saying "we don't want software patents" doesn't give an MEP much to say)

    Use the phone. Email is easily ignored. You'll often get answering machines so think of a short useful message to leave, mention the proposed amendment and tell them your sending them an email with the details.

    Ciaran O'Riordan
    • A kuro5hin post of mine. [kuro5hin.org]

      Posting the link here, because it shows how those who want software patents are prepared to bend the facts to their advantage. If the case for software patents is so good, why would they need to twist facts like this ?

      Would this be of any use in trying to persuade some MEPs that some of those pushing for software patents are behaving in a rather underhand manner ?
  • Europarl [eu.int]
    of this list who do i write to all the parties? i dont remember electing any of them to represent me :_(....
    • Well, if you didn't vote for any of them in the EU parliamentary election, why not just contact the ones from the UK? After all, they are supposed to represent your member state.
    • Hi Loosewire,
      The coming vote is open to all MEPs so please contact as many as you can, preferably from your own country. Please also mail your local FreeSoftware/LUG/digital-freedom groups to encourage them to do some work on this one.

      Gathering info about this topic is pretty hard. swpat.ffii.org is the main website for info but it's a real chore to use. softwarepatents.co.uk is a good site but lacks a lot of the specifics.

      Most important is the counter proposal:
      http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/e
    • one more thing:
      You probably didn't vote for these people, your government made that decision.

      The rules have since been changed though. In future, MEPs will be voted for by the people.
  • LOL! Where are all the "evil, stupid, fascist European" posts? Ahhh, yes, only AMERICA is "evil, stupid, fascist" and out to get us. Only America has stupid patent and copyright laws and (Londoners cover your ears and ignore those cameras on the street corners) violate percieved rights. Whatta joke. Bunch of lamers.

    Derek

  • European Software Comment Form (Score:3, Informative)

    by flagboy ( 670403 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @04:36AM (#6271776) Homepage
    If you are a European small business concerned about the effect of softwre patents on your business use the form at this URL
    to express your concern. This form is maintained by Ian Clarke of Freenet Project [freenetproject.org]. Comments submitted will be passed to MEPs.

    Alex Macfie <alex@cgce.net> [mailto]

  • I just heard this morning from Dutch MEP Erik Meijer that the voting about this issue will be postponed again until september. So we have some more time to react.

    For Dutch readers, here is an interesting discussion about the proposal for software patents:
    http://www.webwereld.nl/nieuws/15381.phtml [webwereld.nl]

    A list of Dutch MEPs including most email addresses can be found here:
    http://www.vosoft.nl/parlementariers.html [vosoft.nl]

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