Capaigning against software patents

[Xavi Drudis Ferran]

El Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 12:28:47AM +0100, Jan Wildeboer deia:
> Niall Douglas wrote:
> 
> >There are some very cheap ways to get accurate figures. One would be 
> >to send a short questionaire to software companies asking if they 
> >feel software patents will cost them (obviously you include 
> >documentation explaining them - preferably with a pro and con 
> >section).
> >

This is not cheap either in time or money. And we only have some weeks, 
I guess.
Anyway, we already have some 400 societites having signed the 
petition at http://petition.eurolinux.org, and some 130000 individuals. 

There was a consultation by the Commission (and others elsewhere).
91 % of replies were against swpats,  but they don't seem to care
http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/eukonsult00/

> >Obviously this would require some money for postage. It duplicates 
> >making them aware of the issue though, so it's well spent.
> 
> Why not contact them via email and provide some links? They are software 
> companies after all ...
> 
> A decent and well-written template could be a good result of this 
> interesting discussion.
> 

You may be interested in http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/enquete/index.en.html
for ideas.

> I think it is unreasonable to ask the FSF for funds when on the other 
> hand the term Free Software should be avoided. It should be a broad 
> coalition of interested people, companies and NGO.
>
That coalition is Eurolinux, the group who has fought harder against 
software patents and who should be preferably used to coordinate action.
 

-- 
Xavi Drudis Ferran
xdrudis at tinet.org