[Westwales] Sites are dropping like flies

[Gareth Bowker]

On Sat, 2005-03-19 at 03:56 +0000, Mark Illsley wrote:
> I dont know if anyone has noticed but checkout the mplayer site and also 
>   the amsn site.  They have BOTH been "CLOSED DOWN"

They're protesting.

> I dont know if there are any other sites that have been taken down but i 
> would not be surprised.  WTF is going on?????

A brief summary:

The European Council tabled a directive to "harmonise" patent laws
between member states. Unfortunately it did a good job in also
legalising software patents. The European Parliament were quite
effectively lobbied by people such as FFII[0] and FSF Europe[1] who
managed to get many of the worst sections removed/amended. This then
went back to the Council for a second reading and they decided that the
elected part of the EU didn't matter and got rid of all the amendments,
thereby making swpat legal (once it makes it to law). Oh, and they also
did this in rather an underhand way[2][3]. This is where we are now. To
get the directive changed again requires an *absolute* majority in the
parliament to vote against it (i.e. more than half of the *total* MEPs
have to vote against). In general, less than half of all the MEPs
actually turn up for most votes, so getting the required majority to
vote against is going to be tough.

Why are Software Patents bad?

People far more eloquent than me have written a lot on this subject - A
few good sites include FFII[0], FFII UK[4] and the UK resource of
Software Patents[5]. Also, google for stuff :)

What can you do?

Find out who your MEP is. Read about why Software patents are bad. Then
write them a letter explaining your stance and how it will effect you or
your company. Phone them to explain. If you can, go visit them in
Brusells ("Hmm, it *must* be important if they've come all this
way..."). If you can't do this, support one of the organisations
lobbying against swpat. FFII are one, FSF Europe are another. In fact,
FSF Europe have just announced a "Fellowship" program[6].

If you develop software, or think you'd like to develop software for
your career, then if this directive gets through unchecked it *will*
affect you. Please do what you can.

Gareth

[0] http://ffii.org/
[1] http://www.fsfeurope.org/
[2] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050307095336843
[3] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/07/ec_says_yes_patents/
[4] http://www.ffii.org.uk/
[5] http://www.softwarepatents.co.uk/
[6] http://www.fsfe.org/
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