[Sussex] Linux market to exceed $35bn by 2008

[Stephen Williams]

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> Now I know that people (looking at you Mr. Williams) will tell us not to
> trust the EU, and with good reason, but they are an organisation with
> legislative power over us and they are discussing it and they are
> generally in the process of swinging away from bad decisions on IT (see
> their handling of Software Patents for encouraging news).
> 

I shall studiously ignore this particular bit of ground bait Mr.
Teale......

What the hell, no I won't.....

I'm not one of those who believes the EU is the antithesis of
incorruptible civilisation. There are some good things that the EU does
or promotes, for example in harmonisation of european civil aviation and
air traffic standards. Often it's down to the individual nations'
handling of EU directives that causes inconsistencies, but even the
Greeks are getting their act together in this field.

However, there is no denying that the European Commission is a long way
short of the standards of accountability and incorruptibility that we
would all wish to see. The European Commission is not yet subordinate to
the European Parliament in the way our own civil service is subordinate
to the government, and it has a propensity to legislate prolifically
without thought for the cost and effort of implementation.

Until the EC is fully accountable and subordinate to an elected body,
and far less prone to corruption, it will not gain my support. However,
specific campaigns on issue of interest may well attract my support. If
EU action against software patents contributes to seeing off the
predatory moves of monopolies against technologies that really should be
kept "open", then I'm happy to support it.

By the way I had a look at the Macromedia Flash Player licence when
Firefox told me I needed a Flash plug in. It's very intrusive - it gives
Macromedia the right to "audit my machines" to ensure licence
compliance. And this for a free download.... Sounds like Macromedia's
lawyers are too far up their own nethers to see the practical realities
of this.

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