Re: An Open Letter On Software Patents and EU Election (fwd)

Hi Tom, on Sat, 5 Jun 2004 11:07:53 +0000 you wrote:

> Have a read of their web sites, rather than rely on the
> "interpretation" of others.

Sure. I'm taking as a base assumption that the people who are reading this
are independent-minded enough that they are not going to base voting
decisions solely on casual comments by random people :)

I do think it's worth at least commenting nonetheless, and following up on
Chris's notes, when a prominent and well-respected person such as Alan Cox
is writing open letters about voting tactics in relation to digital rights
issues. Even putting the current EP elections aside, I find it interesting
to see the growing political awareness and influence of people interested
in digital rights issues, whether they be programmers, musicians, writers
or anyone else for whom stuff like the EUCD/DMCA (harking back to the
origins of this list), IPR Enforcement or software patents have a
resonance. Alan's letter is just a small marker demonstrating that, I
think.

I also think it's worth pointing out what the Greens have been doing in
the EP, because they (you) can be easily overlooked in the UK due to the
lack of weight of numbers particularly in the national parliament. So
going to Brussels last summer was an eye-opener for me if nothing else
because I discovered that Green/EFA Alliance in the EP carry a much more
considerable weight, and also discovered how much effort has been put in
by them on the software patents front in particular. This is not something
that's necessarily immediately apparent to someone only following the
issue in passing, even though it is clear from their website that the
Greens are firmly against software patents and unchecked "intellectual
property" inflation.

However, this being politics and all, you do have to consider these issues
in context. Chris raised the issue of the UKIP's immigration policies.
Whilst they are, in isolation, OT here, it's worth bearing in mind
nonetheless that no matter how "good" any given party may be on a
particular issue (digital rights in this case, but the same could apply to
pretty much anything), other policies or standpoints of that party could
potentially overshadow or even possibly negatively impact on their "good"
policies. Chris said "If the UKIP do well in this election, I do not
believe that the first message that EU governments will take from their
success is 'software patents are bad'", and I think he's right; thus,
whilst I'm sure turning this into a debate about the rights or wrongs of
immigration is OT and pointless, it does make *consideration* of their
standpoint on that issue relevant in this context when the UKIP are going
all-out on a "look at all the billions of immigrants from Eastern Europe -
it's an outrage!" policy.


I'm not trying to persuade anyone of anything in particular (I'm still
open to persuasion myself by any candidate/party who can convince me that
they will take seriously the issues that are important to me); I'm just
thinking aloud on the points raised by Alan/Chris insofar as the potential
for these elections to have an impact on some issues considered important
(or at least interesting) by most of us goes. Everyone should, and I'm
sure will, make their own informed decisions.


> Tom (a Green)


Tim (a Neutral with no particular party-political persuasion)