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The Latest on EU SW Patents - Pics of the Demo |
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Friday, February 18 2005 @ 10:56 AM EST
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"Shortly before midnight, the German Bundestag
became the fourth parliament this month to speak out against the EU
Council's proposal for a software patent directive," so reports nosoftwarepatents.org. Here's the header of their press release and the pertinent first paragraph: Unanimous resolution passed by German parliament against EU Council's
current proposal for a software patent directive -- European software patent
critics celebrate "winning streak" after scoring four parliamentary
victories in 16 days -- Concerns over "Microsoft's best friend in the
Commission" who will decide on EP's restart request The German parliament
unanimously voted on a resolution. Earlier that day, the leaders of all
groups in the European Parliament unanimously decided to request the
European Commission to submit a new proposal for the directive. In the
first half of the month, the Spanish Senado and the Dutch Tweede Kamer had
passed similar resolutions on this controversial issue.
There is an an English translation of the consensus position of the
German parliament here [PDF]. And the press release has a bit more on the Bill Gates threat against Denmark: The
Danish social democrats responded with a press release that "blackmail shall
not dictate Danish policy". Microsoft subsequently denied that Gates made
the respective statement but did admit that intellectual property rights and
their connection with the location of jobs were discussed in the respective
meeting.
Here and here is the latest from FFII on what is going on as far as next steps in the software patents battle in Europe.
Please forgive me if I don't explain much. I'm still getting caught up from my trip, and I don't understand it myself yet. What I see is that the
Conference of Presidents has decided to ask for a restart. And that the President of FFII says it doesn't ensure that the Commission will comply with the request
of the Parliament. But it's another step that had to be achieved for there to be hope of a restart. That's what I understand. Please feel free to explain more, those of you who are sure you know what's next in more detail. As for me, I'll do urls and pictures! Here is an FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) letter that was delivered to Luxemburg's chief Council diplomat, Christian Braun, by 300 FFII demonstrators yesterday, pointing out what they see as flaws in the processes of the European Council and asking for "cautious reform, with view to the software patent directive." They also delivered a webshop poster, showing all the patents already granted, which you can view here. And here's the Thank You, Poland ceremony on the 16th, where a list of all the 30,000 signatures from the website were handed to Poland in a ceremony in the Parliament in Warsaw, with pictures. Here's ZDNet's coverage of yesterday's protest.
"There were some 300 people, which is quite a lot given that it was only announced a week in advance," said [FFII spokesman Jonas] Maebe. "We also had participants from all over Europe, including [among others] Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland."
Maebe said that one of the key themes of the demonstration was that Europe should not be a "banana republic" -- generally defined as a non-democratic state with widespread corruption and foreign influence. Some campaigners claim that the EU Council's attempts to adopt the directive without vote or discussion during Agriculture and Fishery meetings in December and January are undemocratic, particularly as a change in the voting weights of EU members means that the EU Council members which supported the directive in May no longer have a majority vote.
"I think the banana republic metaphor is a great way to express how many people feel about the Council and Commission: no discussions on substance, only attempts to quickly push everything quietly through at fishery meetings," said Maebe. "This is no longer just about software patents, it's now also about democratic legitimacy." There is a picture with the ZDNet coverage. And there are plenty more here. It looks like a very friendly and fun group.
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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 12:00 PM EST |
It is a great thing to see people come together on a single point. It calls the
attention of others to the important parts of the matter at hand, so they too
can be in the know, and have a voice.
The world must change, information is at the heart of individual, unique
thinking. If information is closed, owned by few, the world becomes a very small
place with a very important loss of opportunity and freedoms.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- And thanks to Norbert Bollow - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 02:18 PM EST
- EU Patents - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 20 2005 @ 07:46 AM EST
- EU Patents - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 21 2005 @ 05:13 AM EST
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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 12:06 PM EST |
I wonder if the expression "fishery meeting", with its
new meaning, will become a part of the European political
vocabulary.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- How appropriate - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 12:12 PM EST
- "fishery meetings" - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 12:37 PM EST
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Authored by: Naich on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 12:38 PM EST |
Everyone is having a party in the Sco delisted thread, so I'll bung this here.
<a href="http://www.example.com/">Click</a>
Is how you link.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: BC on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 12:41 PM EST |
It is really encouraging to see momentum building at the national level. I
wonder which country will be next.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 12:44 PM EST |
As I recall, the origin of the term "Banana Republic" was a derogatory reference
to certain Central American nations characterized by having an economy that was
dominated by their single export. Effects such as poverty, corruption and lack
of popular support for the government (which was controlled by the exporter)
were consequences of that economy. John Sauter
(J_Sauter@Empire.Net)[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: eskild on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 12:58 PM EST |
The only real power bestowed on the European Parliament is the right to vote the
Commision out of office.
We now have a situation where the EP significantly modifies a proposed
Directive, the Commision ignores the changes and press hard for approval in the
Council of the original text, the JURI requests a restart, and the EP requests a
restart, and the Commision still presses on the Council to approve the original
text.
It seems fair to conclude that Commision and Council has agreed to ignore the
EP.
They should at least threaten to nuke the Commision
---
Eskild
Denmark[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: nb on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 01:14 PM EST |
For the record (because I have a Polish friend in Australia who cares about such
details) the statement in the FFII "press release" wiki page is not
correct where it says that I "gave book with ThankPoland letter and 30.000
signatures to ministers Marcinski and Nowakowski" and "thanked them
for their action". Besides giving thanks in general terms to
"everyone who was involved" and to "Poland as a whole" I
thanked by name Minister Marcinski and Mr Buzek. I gave the "Thank Poland
letter" with the signatures to Marcinski who then happily started leafing
through it together with Buzek. Marcinski then asked me to create "a
second original" for Buzek which I will happily provide.
It has become very clear to me during this trip to Warsaw that MEP Mr. Buzek (a
former Prime Minister of Poland) certainly deserves to be considered "hero
of Dec 21" together with Marcinski who shouldered the personal burden and
risk being of being the one to say "no". From what I've now heard in
warsaw, my understanding is that Buzek was the visionary thinker in Brussels
behind the plan to have Poland say "NO, wait" in order to delay long
enough so that there was time for JURI to demand a restart.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 01:24 PM EST |
I am intrigued (pleasantly) by this report...
The German parliament agreed unanimously. In my experience, it is no easy task
to get a large, diverse group to agree unanimously.
I interpret this to mean that they recognize (as we do) the many serious issues
relating to software patents, and these issues transcent party lines.
--------------------------
Night Flyer at work
Veritas Vincit: Truth Conquers[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 01:25 PM EST |
The issue has lost interest in the Danish media. The prime minister and the head
of Microsoft Business Solutions (the DK unit) has denied the threats.
However... what Gates said in the meeting was quoted by Microsofts own chief
lawyer (Marianne Wier) and a Danish member of the European parliament (Karin
Riis-Jørgensen, who is pro-software patents) has reported the same statement
from Mr. Gates on another recent meeting. ("software patents or Microsoft
will move")
Go figure...
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 18 2005 @ 06:00 PM EST |
Politicians love to sneak unpopular laws through as ammendments to totally
un-related innocious legislation. Witness how the update to the partiot act was
so unpopular that it was withdrawn, but pieces of it have been quietly snuck
into other legislation.
Never ever ever ever trust a politician. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 19 2005 @ 07:23 AM EST |
Only goes to show: when you meet with a Microsoft representative, post a
readable sign at the entrance to the meeting room "By entering this room
you agree to have your voice recorded and released at the decision of
___________." Then record the bloody meeting.
Do you sense that I'm tired of both the spin of who said what to whom and the
spin of plausible denial?
IANAL[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 20 2005 @ 06:32 AM EST |
By the way, it is not only an issue for EU citizens,
swpats are a worldwide problem.
Currently the USA tries to impose software patents on India, there already is a
kind of ordinance draft.
http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/us-parl
http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/in-parl[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 21 2005 @ 01:02 PM EST |
PJ,
You have focused on Patents as the next major threat to the Open
Software movement. There is another, not far behind, or maybe now coming
into the lead.
Read Ed Fosters Gripe Line
http://weblog.infoworld.com/foster/2005/02/18.html#a218
Then read the
EFF's appeal on the Blizzard vs. BnetD case.
http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd and the four amicus
briefs.
Remember how the SAMBA group was very vocal in their claim they
did not "reverse engineer"? Microsoft doesn't need the patent protection they
are building up in their warchest, if they can argue that what the SAMBA team
did was "reverse engineer" the software they agreed to when they installed the
MS product on a machine for testing purposes. Read the MS EULA very carefully,
then the ruling of the judge, then decide whether or not there is a threat
there.
To paraphrase another tag line I've seen on Groklaw, the
price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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