[Fsfe-ie] Ms. Harney on Newstalk 106 tomorrow (Friday)

Fergal Daly fergal at esatclear.ie
Thu Apr 15 11:49:31 CEST 2004


Should you also address the issue of non-R&D companies and contracotrs
having to negotiate a minefield of patent issues just to implement a website
or a bit of bespoke software,

F

On Thu, Apr 15, 2004 at 05:41:40AM -0500, ?ibhear wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I heard this morning that Dave McWilliams will be having breakfast with Mary
> Harney tomorrow morning. This is usually an hour-long chat, and the
> programme asks for people to send in their own questions and comments. I
> propose to send in the below. I'm not certain that I have the correct read
> on things (the question below reflects my own opinion), but if the IFSO
> wants to put it name to it, then maybe I can get some more suggestions.
> 
> I am focusing in my question on small and indigenous businesses as I don't
> want the question turned away because it advocates what many people believe
> (wrongly, but there's little that can be done about it in one question) that
> Free Software is an uber-socialist phenomenon.
> 
> Here's my question for herself, anyway.
> 
> ?ibhear
> --
> Hi,
> 
> Perhaps you can bring the following up with the Tanaiste when you are
> speaking with her.
> 
> This week, it was announced that the proposed EU directive on software
> patents has been referred "back up to the 'political' level". The
> government, as President of the EU, wants all the objections dropped,
> including all the clarifying amendments that were added to it in the
> European Parliament last September.
> 
> There are many thousands of software-based patents in the US, some passing
> ridiculous and entrenching themselves right in the middle of sublime. Most
> of these are held by the large corporations from the US -- Microsoft, IBM,
> Sun Microsystems, etc. These organisations have small or no R&D operations
> in Ireland. What is here is easily relocated to the US or the far east at
> the piqued whim of a company's CEO. If software patents are brought into
> Europe, then it's natural to believe that all these patents will be applied
> over here.
> 
> This morning, you (Dave McWilliams) were involved in a discussion which
> decried the lack of technology R&D taking place in Ireland, and you sounded
> supportive of the notion of providing tax breaks to companies who have R&D
> budgets.
> 
> If software patents are introduced into Europe as proposed by Ireland, then
> indigenous companies will not be able to perform R&D here as the burden of
> managing what existing patents are being put to use will be far too great.
> 
> Perhaps you could ask Ms. Harney why she supports software patents, when
> software is already perfectly protected by copyright, given that it will
> certainly stifle R&D in small countries like Ireland. You could also ask her
> how Europe can compete when the vast majority of software implementations
> are already patented in the US by non-european companies, and that not a
> single piece of software can be implemented without availing of a large
> number of those patents.
> 
> Thanks, etc.
> 
> ?...and so on.
> 
> --
> ?ibhear ? hAnluain
> IFSO
> Ireland.
> _______________________________________________
> fsfe-ie at fsfeurope.org mailing list
> List information: http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/fsfe-ie
> Public archive: https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ie
> 



More information about the FSFE-IE mailing list