<nettime> Fwd: Mandrakelinux NWL: EU Software Patent Legislation: a real threat for Linux and Open Source

["[iso-8859-1] ben moretti" <benmoretti {AT} yahoo.com.au>]

this news flash from mandrake might be of interest.
don't apple have a big manufacturing plant in ireland?


b
 
> 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.
> 


=====
ben moretti
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t: +61 0438 822 196

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