a future with hurdles for ubuntu

[Arjan Geven]

On 6/29/05, Alexander Volovics <awol at home.nl> wrote:
> On june 5 or 6 the EU bill on software patents is due for
> debate in the "full" parliament. The bill as it reads now is a
> invitation to horror (with a little googling you can find the
> text or summaries somewhere, and also accounts of it's history
> up to now).
> 
> Unless you are a card carrying member of the Business Software
> Alliance, or feel at home in the capitalist, neoliberal, freemarket,
> globalisation, privatise everything stream of effluence that is
> being poured over Europe you might find something fishy about
> the patenting of code (in whatever form).
> 
> Think about patenting mathematical theorems, lemmas, corrolaries.
> Or patenting text phrases, sequences of musical notes, etc.
> These things "belong" to everybody. They are not the 'intelectual
> property' of some multinational or consortium.
> 
> The only acceptable form for this bill would run along the lines
> of Michel Rocard's suggestions (Rocard is a former French prime
> minister and a member of the european parliament).
> Everything else should be rejected outright by a majority of the
> parliament and not be sent back to the EU council for change or
> amemdments. And certainly the unelected EU commission should keep
> its dirty, business lobby tainted, paws off the bill.
> 
> It is short day but massive polite protest might still have some
> influence. If possible approach your representative in the EU
> parlement, succinctly and politely, to 'votez non'. If possible
> organize massive protests in Brussels, etc.
> 
> Especially our eastern european ubuntistas should wake up to
> the fact that after basking for a short while in the so called
> progressive schemes of neoliberal, freemarket, privatise eveything
> reformers they might find themselves even more entangled and
> enslaved than before.
> 
> And if any German ubuntista can get close enough to Brigitte Zypries
> I would advice ging this socialist Bundesjustizministerin a very very
> firm kick in the arse for her advice to the German EU parliamentarians.
> 
> Alexander

I guess the best thing you can do is send a e-mail yourself, or call
(mwuah, the horror, such an outdated concept!). I contacted my
EU-representative the other day and he confirmed again that I made the
right choice in the last votings and that he will vote against
Software Patents.

Try it yourself. If companies can lobby, so can we!

Power to the people! *cough*
Arjan