Hi there.
It was great to meet (many of) you last night. Surprisingly, two things have happened already since then:
Firstly, someone from Avril Doyle's (MEP, FG) office rang me. She said that Avril was "watching this situation closely". It sounds like she would be interested in more commentry, suggestions for ammendments, etc.
Secondly, Francois Pellegrini, who gave an anti-software patents talk at GUADEC, mailed me with advice on how to lobby Irish MEPs. After seeing him talk, I'd e-mailed him to get his slides (which can be got from http://www.abul.org/brevets/conferences/?abul_lang=3Den --- these are very good overviews of the situation).
Francois' key point is:
Regarding the argumentation, focus on economy, not on ideology. Try to separate the swpat case from the libre software case. It would be good if you could bring the CEO of some Irish software SMEs (preferrably not from the libre software field but rather the proprietary software field) to express concerns to the MEPs.
He also warns that Mac Carthy's husband (I assume he means Arlene McCarthy --- one of the chief proponents of software patents in Europe) is a well known political journalist in Ireland. Specifically, he says:
you will have to be very careful of what the MEPs tell you, because they have already been lobbied.
Whew! My most political morning ever!
Good luck,
Malcolm.
P.S. As my letter seems to generated some responses it may be of some use as a reference. I've put in on my web page (latex source & .ps):