[DMCA-Activists] Slashdot: Stop the Attempt to Legalize Software Patents in Europe

[Seth Johnson]

> http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/04/10/1627239.shtml?tid=117&tid=155&tid=99


Demonstration Against Software Patents in Europe

Posted by michael on Saturday April 10, @01:56PM

from the fighting-the-good-fight dept.

bram.be [1] writes "On April 14, FFII [2] is organising a walking
demonstration in Brussels [3] against the legalisation of software patents
in Europe, as well as a legislation benchmarking conference [4]. Like in
August last year [5], these events will be accompanied by an online
demonstration [6] whereby webmasters are asked to close their websites in
protest. The reason for the renewed protest is that after the European
Parliament voted for a great directive, it is now the Council of Minister's
turn, whose working party proposes as 'compromise' to simply discard all
good amendments [7] and on top of that to even make program publication [8]
an infringement [9]. Already more then 1300 sites participate in the online
demonstration. Among them are some big sites like KDE [10], the GNU Project
[11] and the Gimp [12]. Also, on April 15 the European Greens/EFA group [13]
is organising a Euro-LUG party [14] inside the European Parliament, 'with a
view to enhance the networking among the free software community in Europe
[...], to inform the EP about what free software is, how it works and which
ideas lie behind.' Speakers will include Gwen Hinze (EFF), Jon Lech Johansen
(DeCSS), Georg Greve (FSF Europe and Alan Cox. Prior registration [15] is
mandatory for this event."


[1] http://demo.ffii.org - bram.be
[2] http://swpat.ffii.org/ - FFII
[3] http://demo.ffii.org/brussels.php - walking demonstration in Brussels
[4] http://plone.ffii.org/events/2004/bxl04/prep/ - legislation benchmarking
conference
[5] http//yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/20/1244241&tid=155 - August
last year
[6] http://demo.ffii.org/online.php - online demonstration
[7] http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/cons0401/index.en.html -
discard all good amendments
[8] http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/prog/index.en.html -
program publication
[9] http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/cons0401/index.en.html#prog -
infringement
[10] http://www.kde.org/ - KDE
[11] http://www.gnu.org/ - the GNU Project
[12] http://www.gimp.org/ - the Gimp
[13] http://www.greens-efa.org/ - European Greens/EFA group
[14] http://www.greens-efa.org/en/agenda/detail.php?id=1365 - Euro-LUG party
[15] http://greens-efa.org/pdf/agenda/euroLUGparty.pdf/ - Prior
registration<BR>


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