sslug-teknik team mailing list archive

[Lennart Andersen <landersen@xxxxxx>]

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Flash: EU Software Patent Legislation: a real threat for Linux
and Open
Source

Mandrakesoft would like to alert all users and the software
community at
large about a recent clandestine attack by proprietary interest
through
covert adoption of EU Software Patent Legislation.

In direct contravention of the recent vote by the European
Parliament to
curtail Software Patents, the Irish Presidency of the European
Union has
surreptitiously reinstated unlimited software patent language
into the
text of a statement to be adopted by the European Council of
Ministers
on Monday May, 17th, without further debate!

The new text, if adopted, will extend Software Patents to every
piece of
software, including computer programs, data structures, and
process
descriptions.  This will directly harm most software firms and
all Open
Source projects unable to pay patent licensing tribute, and
amounts to
an appropriation of the public domain by proprietary interests.
A
direct beneficiary will be a new class of pure patent companies
without
any real business or contribution to employment, which will use
the
threat of litigation to extort payments.
Of note is that a sponsor of the Irish Presidency is Microsoft,
currently building a large patent portfolio.  If the Software
Patent
text is adopted, Microsoft may use this patent portfolio against
Linux
and other Open Source projects.

Mandrakesoft would like to forewarn and mobilize its users and
the
software community about the very real threat of such a law.
Please
contact the media, your political representatives, and your
government,
and urge them to vote against unlimited Software Patents and to
revert
to the previous European Parliament position.

For further information please see the following links:
        http://swpat.ffii.org/journal/04/cons0507/index.en.html
        http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn

                Mandrakesoft Online Team.
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Lennart Andersen
St Thomas, Ontario
landersen@xxxxxx
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