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Re: [LUG] software patents
Thanks for that, I have now sent an e-mail to Graham Booth, and then
thought what the hell and sent the same (but edited) message to Tony Blair,
I think I have made my point and used
If anyone wants to use the main body of this to help feel free, we need
to act NOW, at least if we lose, we can say well we tried,
Paul
I have pasted this below,
Dear Mr Booth
I once again write to you to ask you to support the stance against
software patents, this is due to be voted on in the European parliment,
on 5th to 7th of July, To highlight the problem please take a look at
the following quote from www.knoppix.org
"Soon the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers will again
decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called "software
patents" in Europe, which are already used by large companies in other
countries to put competitors out of business. This can lead to the
termination of many software projects such as KNOPPIX, at least within
Europe, because the holders of the over 30,000 already granted "software
patents" (currently without a legal foundation) can claim exclusive
rights and collect license fees for trivial things like "progress bars",
"mouseclicks on online order forms", "scrolling within a window" and
similar. That way, software developers will have to pay the
"software-patentholders" for using these features, even in their own,
completely self-developed applications, which can completely stall the
development of innovative software for small and medium companies. Apart
from this, the expense for patent inquiries and legal assistence is
high, for even trying to find out if the self-developed software is
/possibly/ violating "software-patents", if you want to continue to
market your software. Contrary to real patents, "software-patents" are,
in the draft proposed by the commission, monopolization of business
ideas and methods, even without any tangible technical implementation. "
The situation is desperate, Microsoft have already said they will sue
if software patents are implemented, so here we will have a large
multinational billion dollar corporation suing very small companies,
in addition it's the smaller companies who object to software patents
also, not only the free software community, Microsoft are just bullies
who have broken both European and American anti trust law, and many laws
on other issues also, are you prepared to see small sucessful
businesses in England and especially Devon, go bankcrupt and owe
millions please stand up for these companies,
Do Microsoft need more money. ? How much money do councils give to
Microsoft, each year, thats is Taxpayers money being given away,
Software patents simply do not seem to work, take a look at the above
there are quite a few companies in Devon who write software, how many
of these use scroll bars, yes the part of the very software you are
perhaps using to read this message. Now Imagine the number of companies
writing software, now imagine how many people they employ, now imagine
them all on the dole queue because this directive was passed,
It seems once again those people with the most money, can influence
politicians, this is not democracy, in a democracy, everyone has their
voice, the people of the UK did not even vote to be part of a european
dictatorship, which is what I see it as, perhaps you could bring this
issue up with Tony Blair at the next question time, rather than
squabbling over the EU constitution or our rebate, the cost of this
directive will make the rabate issue look very small, please, please
help the progammers, in Europe, fight this, otherwise we could see many
problems, with software, projects being shut down, As I said a vast
number of programmers object to software patents, it's only the rich
who want them, so they can get richer by sueing those with less money,
it;s about money, so please stand up for the majority, and vote
against this.
At the moment schools and many other places have a choice between paying
microsoft or using software such as openoffice, if this choice is taken
away it could cost millions, and schools simply can't afford license
fees any more, once microsoft rid the world of competition then they
will be free to put up prices, and change thigns as they like.
Thank you for your time, I hope you can support us.
Your sincerely
Paul Sutton
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