[Wolves] MEP's and Patents

[Matthew Revell]

Kat Goodwin wrote:

> Yeah, he spoke at OpenAdvantage's opening.  A completely inappropriate
> guest for an organisation set up to promote the use of open source.

Well, he's a Tory.

> He jibbered on a lot about things unrelated to software then slipped in a
> few comments about software patents and how they would protect the rights
> of software developers... I'm not sure if he really doesn't understand or
> if he is just really good at seeming ignorant, but he didn't impress me at
> all.

Yes, he's a Tory.

> (I also thought he was a nasty creepy man!)

Did I mention that he's a Tory? :-D

Seriously, there may be some quite nice, decent people in the 
Conservative party, but Harbour appears to be of the type that have 
given them such a bad name. Having said that, Labour has plenty of 
distateful people in its ranks: Arlene McCarthy MEP, for one. She does a 
very good job of appearing to be ignorant of the issues surrounding 
software patents, yet speaks with passion in their favour.

As for the Lib Dems, I'm not entirely sure what their position is. I got 
the following quote from Liz Lynne, their West Mids MEP:

"The European Parliament tried to take a balanced view of the 
Commission's proposal. On the one hand, the need of small
businesses to be able to protect their inventions with patents, and on 
the other, to stop big business patenting absolutely
everything and excluding competitors from the market."

"If either the European Commission or the Council of Ministers upsets 
this balance, the Parliament can re-table its
amendments when the proposal returns to it, probably later this year."

So, I don't know what the Lib Dems think on software patents but Liz did 
try to give a balanced view of the situation.

The Greens were quite cool, saying they're:

"1. Opposed to software patents
2. Advocate of open source software, especially its use by public
authorities for reasons of cost, control and transparency"

I'm preparing a feature for LugRadio, that'll look at the various open 
source views etc of the main political parties, with the forthcoming 
elections in mind. Actually, it's more likely to turn into a special 
episode, due to the fact that we won't have enough material in time for 
next week's recording and the fact that the episode after that won't be 
released until the afternoon of the election day.

If anyone wants to give their input, mail me privately.

-- 

Cheers,

Matthew Revell.

www.lugradio.org - radio for Linux and open source fans
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