EUCD and Belgian Software Law

[Rudy Gevaert]

Hello,

(Translated the "Belgische Auteurswet"="Belgian author law", but I think
in english this is the copyright law, excuse me for my possible
incorrect translation)

I'm following computer science at the RUG in Belgium, and we have a
college about "Industrial rights".  We saw the Belgian Copyright Law,
protection of databases, the Belgian Software law, etc.

As being a smartass I asked our professor about the EUCD in our last
lesson, and about the effects on software makers.  I also pointed the
several people in in the FSF and OSS world didn't like the EUCD.

Like I could have thought the guy didn't know about FSF/OSS, but he did
tell me that the improvments that are going to be made to the Belgian
copyright law are good (Yikes!) and I should "cry with the wolves in the
forrest".

Well, I took the proposel in my hand of new Belgian copyright law, and I
did see it only changed the law about copyright and databases, but not
the Software law!

The Belgian Software law also states the concerning software one has to
follow the software law and when this doesn't handle the specific case
you have to look at the copyright law.

Why are they changing only the copyright law?  

As a second question could somebody give me several examples why the
EUCD is bad for FSF/OSS developers?  I'm having an oral exam of that
course :).

Thanks in advance,
-- 
Rudy Gevaert - rudy at zeus.rug.ac.be  - http://www.zeus.rug.ac.be  
keyserverID=24DC49C6 -  http://www.webworm.org <-- UPDATED
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