Re: [Savannah-hackers] OT: Can Savannah help protest against SWPats?

[Felix E. Klee]

On Sun, 24 Aug 2003 11:31:39 +0200 (MEST) Mathieu Roy wrote:
> > Would it be possible to inform all maintainers of projects
> > hosted on Savannah about this online demonstration? Do you have some
> > kind of newsletter where a small announcement could be placed?
> 
> We can do a mass mailing to all our user but we never do it: sending
> 10000 mails is not a good option. 
> What we can easily do is to post a news item on the front page. Less
> people read
>   it than a mail, sure, but I think it can help.
> 
> Interested? If so, can you provide a little explanation we can
> copy/paste + quote, with links?

Here's something that you can put in the news section:

<!-- Subject: -->
Online demo against software patents

<!-- Abstract: --> 
In the face of the planned decision in the beginning of September
concerning the legalization of Software Patents in Europe, the <a
href=http://www.ffii.org>FFII</a> is organizing a <a
href=http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/demo0819/index.en.html>wave of
protest</a>. Savannah Projects are encouraged to participate in the
accompanying <a
href=http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/index.en.html>Online Demo</a>.

<!-- Additional info: --> 
<p>
The idea of the Online Demo is that with software
patents many sites running/serving possibly patent infringing software
have to go offline sooner or later.  So why not demonstrate this effect
before it's too late?
<p>
To find out whether a project is already infringing upon patents, the
following resources are of interest:
<ul> 
<li> <a href=http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/index.en.html>European
Software Patent Horror Gallery</a>
<li> <a
href=http://ep.espacenet.com/>The EPO's patent data base (includes US
and other patents)</a>
<li> <a href=http://patinfo.ffii.org/patente.html>Some examples (in
German)</a></ul>
<p>
Note that in spite of the current legislation (see <a
href=http://www.european-patent-office.org/legal/epc/e/ar52.html#A52>Ar
t. 52</a> of the European Patent Convention) many trivial software
patents have already been granted in Europe.