How to promote free software

Marcus Brinkmann Marcus.Brinkmann at ruhr-uni-bochum.de
Sun Dec 1 18:52:38 UTC 2002


Hi,

Lots of things can be said about the swpat discussion, just a quick note:

On Sun, Dec 01, 2002 at 05:05:52PM +0100, Onno Timmerman wrote:
> In short software is alien to most politicians. And free software is for them
> something like freeware or something very confusing. However some arguments I
> think are working. 

The good thing is that you can argue against spftware patents without
talking about free software at all.  Free software is one more reason, but
sofwtare patents are harmful to all companies that have something to do with
software, it's not a "niche" problem.

So, don't be shy.  Talk about the economy, about labour.  Talk about all
companies except the very, very big international ones (ie, microsoft).

There are no studies showing that software pantents would have a positive
effect on the economy, but there are several showing the opposite.

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU      http://www.gnu.org    marcus at gnu.org
Marcus Brinkmann              The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
Marcus.Brinkmann at ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/



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