Malcolm Tyrrell malcoh0l@yahoo.ie writes:
The forthcoming Tuesday is the third of the month, so there will be an IFSO meeting in Mahaffey's pub.
Two things to have on the agenda:
* An Irish free software business network (or Ireland and UK)
This has been discussed on some lists and by phone, but it's a big topic so a few discussions ended with "lets discuss this when we're all together in person".
Something is stirring, so we should decide what sort of things we'd, who we'd be willing to give our time/advice to, what we will ignore, and is anything happening that creates a situation where we will have missed the boat if we do not make something useful happen now.
* The beginning of the 2nd software patents battle
It looks like the battle is coming back. Instead of changing what the law says about what is patentable and what is not, this time the threat is that a specialist, EU-wide court will be set up to deal with patent litigation. The two current proposals (the Community Patent and the European Patent Litigation Agreement) put the European Patent Office in command of this patent court. So the people who have to follow the law (the administration) will hire and fire the judges that audit whether they are actually following the law. Gobsmacking but true. This has been kinda on the cards, but it's happening now, and the strategies we can choose from are appearing.
See yous there.