On 20 Aug 2003 20:10:36 +0200, Felix E. Klee wrote:
>
> I'm a member of the FFII and we are organizing a demonstration on
> August 27th (see the latest press release at http://swpat.ffii.org/
> neues/03/demo0819/index.en.html) to make people and MEPs (members of the
> European parliament) aware of the dangers surrounding the legalization
> of software patents that may be up for vote in the European Parliament
> as early as September 1st. The main part of the demonstration will take
> place in Brussels. In addition there will be an "online demonstration"
> whose idea is to simulate the effects of Software Patents by shutting
> down web sites on August 27th (http://swpat.ffii.org/gruppe/demo/
> index.de.html).
>
> Is there any chance that the FVWM project participates in this event?
If all developers agree to participate in this event (by changing the web
site in one or another way) then the FVWM name may be used to protest
software patents in Europe. If any single participant disagrees then
everyone else should fight individually without using the FVWM name.
Personally I am surelly against software patents anywhere. However,
although I support this action, I don't think it will change anything.
Anyone who advocates software patents may hardly change her mind.
> Note that the FVWM web site doesn't need to be closed down completely.
> On http://swpat.ffii.org/gruppe/demo/index.de.html there are several
> examples on how it's possible to show ones concerns without taking such
> drastic measures, but there's no need to stick to the examples.
>
> Just as a quick reminder: Many trivial things are already patented in
> the US such as tabbed palettes (http://swpat.ffii.org/patente/
> wirkungen/palette/index.en.html) which e.g. FVWMTabs is infringing upon.
> I for one don't want to have the same situation in Europe and fear that
> it will ultimately kill the competitiveness of Free Software. So this
> protest is likely to be our last chance to somewhat influence the
> decision making process.
Technically I would show 2 versions of every page. The second is the real
one invoked with ?protested=1, the first version (if there is no such
variable passed) shows the protest page and a link to the real version.
This may be done for 3 days.
Regards,
Mikhael.
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Received on Thu Aug 21 2003 - 03:01:40 BST