[Fsfe-ie] anti software patent MEP voting recommendations for Friday 11th

[Ciaran O'Riordan]

This isn't an official IFSO thing, it's just from me.

Few people turning up for Friday's 3-in-1 vote will have anything to base
their MEP vote on, so a lot of people you know will be open to suggestions.
If you'd like to use your vote to help prevent software ideas becoming
patentable, please pass on this recommendation, in digital or oral form.

and please forward to other lists (sage, milug, clug, evoting?, and others),
and post to discussion boards or mention in IRC, I'm only on ilug and
fsfe-ie.  Here's a URL for this same mail sent to ilug:
http://www.linux.ie/pipermail/ilug/2004-June/015940.html

+-----------+----------------+---------------+
|Area       |Vote #1         |and #2         |
+-----------+----------------+---------------+
|East       |Avril Doyle     |Eoin Dubsky    |
|South      |Brian Crowley   |Gerard Collins |
|North West |Sean O'Neactain |               |
|Dublin     |Patrica McKenna |Ivana Bacik    |
+-----------+----------------+---------------+

For a summary of the swpat issue, see http://ifso.ie/projects/swpats.html


[First, thanks to the people that came to Stallmans anti-swpat talk - and to
those who helped pass the word around so much that we overflowed the venue.
A transcript is now at: http://ifso.ie/events/2004-05-24/transcript.html ]

Five sitting MEPs are running for re-election.  Each has a solid anti-swpat
voting record and it would be great to have them back:

Avril Doyle (East, FG)
Patricia McKenna (Dublin, Green)
Brian Crowley (South, FF)
Gerard Collins (South, FF)
Sean O'Neachtain (North West, FF)

Two non-sitting MEP candidates have vocally opposed swpats:

Eoin Dubsky (East, Independent)
Ivana Bacik (Dublin, Labour)

Notes:
* Avril Doyle made anti-swpat press releases and convinced other MEPs to
  vote anti-swpat.
* Patricia McKenna made anti-swpat press releases, directly helped us with
  our lobbying, and spoke at Stallmans recent talk in Dublin.
* Brian Crowley tabled anti-swpat amendments (which the Parliament adopted)
* Eoin Dubsky has released some php scripts under the GPL
* Ivana Bacik is an FSF supporter and is a TCD law lecturer

I'm not sure how the others are polling but McKenna is bordering on losing
her seat.  Our job would be harder without her, so please consider giving
her your vote if you're in Dublin, and asking others to do the same.


The above voting recommendations were pretty obvious once all the data was
collated, there was no party-a Vs. party-b decisions etc., but here's the
party info just because I've gathered it and someone's bound to ask:

Since all of the Irish MEPs voted against software patents, there are none
to avoid.  Mary Harney's pro software patent stance is irrelevant since
she's not an MEP and the PDs haven't fielded any candidates.

Proinsias De Rossa (Labour's only MEP) abstained from the vote last
September, so Labour have no track record.  Pat Cox and Dana Rosemary
Scallon (independents) also abstained.  5 out of 6 Fianna Fail MEPs voted
anti-swpats, the 6th abstained.  All 5 Fine Gail MEPs, and both Green MEPs
voted anti-swpat.

The parties that Fianna Fail and the Greens belong to in the Parliament both
voted 100% anti-swpat.  Fine Gail and Labour belong to European parties that
voted ~60% PRO-swpat.  Surprisingly few decisions can be made from this data
since beefing up the good parties is good, and injecting good people into
bad parties is also good.  But as said, the recommendations above were the
only clear option and didn't require playing parties against eachother.


-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan
http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/
Become an Associate Member of FSF: http://member.fsf.org/