[Cumbria] Legal development of free software

[Nick Hill]

I am concerned that companies such as Microsoft will succeed in killing 
their competition- free and open source software.

This will occur not through competition but by political collaboration. 
There is a real and current danger that free software will, effectively, 
be outlawed by the introduction of extended state-sanctioned monopolies.

Arlene McCarthy is MEP for Cumbria, Lancashire, Chester and Cheshire. 
She is currently working hard to push through proposals which will kill 
the paradigm of free software development.

We can secure the future of free and open source software by fighting 
Arlene McCarthy politically. She must be made to realise that she is 
actually not aligning herself with the power interests which will 
promote her political career.


http://swpat.ffii.org/players/mccarthy/index.en.html


A pleanry session where the measures being proposed by Arlene McCarthy 
will be voted on is scheduled for mid May 2003.There is a lot of work 
which needs to be done before then to ensure our software freedom.