Thanks to edri-ip list ------
FYI:
The Greens in the European parliament invite you to an ultimate conference on software patents:
Free Software versus Software Patents
Chaired by MEPs Monica Frassoni and Eva Lichtenberger
June 2nd, 2005, from 9.30 to 13.00
European Parliament, Brussels, Room ASP 1G2
The "Software Patents" Directive is back in the European Parliament. It will be adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs on June 20/21th. The plenary session will debate and the text in second reading during the first week of July. This conference takes place at a crucial moment of the intense debate on the software patents.
The impact software patents would have on Free Software is one of the key elements of the debate. Could Free/Libre/Open-Source software (FLOSS) still flourish in the European Union if the Directive legalizes software patents? We've gathered key representatives of the FLOSS community, from the public sector, private sector, and civil society, to debate this topic.
The conference will be followed by a buffet on Square du Luxembourg. Later the same day a demonstration against software patents organized by Association Electronique Libre and Open Standaarden will take place and we invite all of you to attend see http://demo.ael.be http://demo.ael.be/ . We also recommend attending the conference on 1st June organized by FFII and 4 EPP Members of the European Parliament see http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2005/bxl0601/ http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2005/bxl0601/
DRAFT PROGRAMME
9.30 Keynote speech : Richard M. Stallman, Free Software Foundation
10.00 Panel I: Patents and FLOSS
Dan Ravisher executive Director for the Public Patent Foundation (to be confirmed)
Robert Sutor, Vice President for Open Standards and Open Source Software, IBM Corporation: IBM's patent policy
David Sant, European Patent Office
10.45 Debate
11.15 Panel II: FLOSS-based commerce
A representative of Sun Microsystems
David Axmark, CEO of MySQL
Jiri Gaisler, CEO of Gaisler
12.00 Debate
12.30 Keynote speech : Alan Cox, Founder of Red Hat
Participation is free however it is mandatory to register :
http://greens-efa.org/pdf/agenda/Freesoftwareandsoftwarepatents/index.php http://greens-efa.org/pdf/agenda/Freesoftwareandsoftwarepatents/index.php