FSF Europe & software patents

[loic at gnu.org]

	Hi,

	I hope to open the software patent section of FSF Europe today.
It will contain :

	- A one page introduction explaining the current situation
	  http://www.fsfeurope.org/swpat/swpat.en.html
	  (still waiting for feedback from EuroLinux to publish it
	   on their pages)
	- A history timeline
	  http://www.fsfeurope.org/swpat/patents.en.html
	  (same as http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference/agenda/)
	- A "how to get involved" page
	  (not done yet)

	All this done in close cooperation with members of the EuroLinux
Alliance. 

	I've been talking and reading a lot during the past week to
find out what's happening and what should be done. It was a
surprisingly hard process. People who know don't have time to write it
down, people who remember things can't point to a reference, the
web sites are working tools and of little help for the newbie.

	My questions were simple:

	What's the situation ? What happened ? What should be done ? 

	I wrote two documents above to answer the first two questions
and I'll write the third one in the weeks to come. For the future I
think I'll continue to be the software patents newbie of the FSF
Europe. At some point it's possible that I won't be able to play this
role but for the time being it seems an important and useful one.

	Take care,

-- 
Loic   Dachary         http://www.dachary.org/  loic at dachary.org
24 av Secretan         http://www.senga.org/      loic at senga.org
75019    Paris         Tel: 33 1 42 45 09 16        loic at gnu.org
        GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt