[Fsfe-ie] FW: Important European Issue: software patents

Ryan Meade ryan at meade.net
Fri May 21 16:15:59 CEST 2004


Here's what I sent to Gay Mitchell, I'll send out the rest in a short while,
so let me know if there are any comments on the content.

Ryan

------ Forwarded Message
From: Ryan Meade <ryan at meade.net>
Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 15:13:08 +0100
To: <Gay.Mitchell at finegael.ie>
Subject: Important European Issue: software patents

Dear Gay,

I hope the campaign is going well - I received your Litir um Thoghchán
today.  I hope you've received my literature also!

I'm contacting you because I saw that your Oireachtas committee on European
Affairs recently heard a delegation of major IT companies and venture
capitalists promoting the concept of allowing software to be patented.  I
understand they won the backing of your committee for their position, but
I'm not certain if the committee had the opportunity to hear the other side
of this argument.

In any case, I would like to inform you of an excellent opportunity to learn
of the dangers of software patents, in the form of a talk by Richard
Stallman, a renowned authority and campaigner on this topic.  The talk takes
place on Monday 24th May at 19:30 in Trinity College.

Full details are available at this address:  http://www.ifso.ie/news.html#n7

Other European candidates and MEPs are expected to attend, and it will be an
excellent opportunity to learn of the negative effects software patents
would have on indigenous software development companies.

If you can't attend on Monday, I wonder if you could let me know if there
might be any opportunity of presenting this side of the debate to the
Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs.

Good luck with the rest of the campaign!

Kind regards,

Ryan

Councillor Ryan Meade
Green Party - Rathmines

------ End of Forwarded Message




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