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Yes! EU Software patent directive stalled!

More here. This is great news! All credits go to Poland. Of course my own minister (Brinkhorst, The Netherlands) was asked by the parliament to do the same thing as Poland's minister did but refused to do so, to avoid losing credibility among fellow ministers...

Published Tuesday, December 21, 2004 7:21 PM by FransBouma

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Comments

# re: Yes! EU Software patent directive stalled!@ Wednesday, December 22, 2004 1:32 AM

And because the Dutch are always "haantje de voorste" and "beste kindje van de klas" when it concerns throwing away money and bad ideas.

Dennis v/d Stelt

# re: Yes! EU Software patent directive stalled!@ Thursday, December 23, 2004 4:06 AM

And it even takes a German expert in European Law to set the record straight on Brinkhorst's explanation "that he is not allowed to change his vote". This man lied to the government, lied to Parliament, and lied to us, the people. But does that have consequences? Of course not. Compassionate, Involved and Reliable? Yeah right! Jan-Peter, go home.

Wolfgang

# re: Yes! EU Software patent directive stalled!@ Thursday, December 23, 2004 4:12 AM

Exactly!

Too bad no-one cares about software patents ("What are they?") in the netherlands, besides software developers, so the public is not informed about this crap. :/

Frans Bouma

# re: Yes! EU Software patent directive stalled!@ Friday, December 24, 2004 5:06 AM

You can sign a thank you letter to the Polish minister at: http://thankpoland.info/

Vincent Snijders

# re: Yes! EU Software patent directive stalled!@ Thursday, January 06, 2005 4:21 PM

I think the public would start caring if they are told that patents are being handed out on information entities and companies are being given divine rights to monopolise mathematics and logic. Today it's programs, but tomorrow? This debate is really about what achievements should be considered to be ownable in the same way as a packet of crisps. The lobby argue that information is just like any other "field of technology" that should yield them broad exclusion rights for every "new" and "useful" improvement in programming, of course this overlooks the issue of information having properties that are unique such as low cost reproducability, mass participation and of course freedom of expression etc. etc.

Christian Beauprez