[Nottingham] Patents considered harmful?

Martin Garton nottingham at mailman.lug.org.uk
Thu Sep 4 09:57:01 2003


On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, Robert Davies wrote:

> http://lwn.net/Articles/47506/  - Arlene McCarthy's 'factsheet'
> 
> She seems to be talking more sense, than her previous articles..

She seems to be doing exactly the same as ever to me.

She is saying all the right things that sound favourable, but when you
read the actual proposal you find it will allow most of the same abuses we
already see happening in the US.  There is a lot of detail about this at 
ffii.org

I wrote to one of my MEPs Nick Clegg (Lib-Dem) several times explaining
why I thing software patents are a terrible idea, and eventually received
mildly encouraging responses. I encourage anyone else who sees software
patents as overall detrimental to our industry or community to do the same
- especially if you work for one of the smaller software companies that
McCarthy claims to want to support.

Regards,
Martin.