EU Software Patents Legislation Threatens Small Software Companies, Linux And Open Source Initiatives

Mandrakesoft, a major Linux software distributor has issued an alert through its newsletter in which it informs all its users and the software community at large about a recent clandestine attack by proprietary interests through covert adoption of EU Software Patent Legislation. In direct contravention of the recent vote by the European Parliament to curtail Software Patents, the Irish Presidency of the European Union has surreptitiously reinstated unlimited software patent language into the text of a statement to be adopted by the European Council of Ministers on Monday May, 17th, without further debate! The new text, if adopted, will extend Software Patents to every piece of software, including computer programs, data structures, and process descriptions. This will directly harm most software firms and all Open Source projects unable to pay patent licensing tribute, and amounts to an appropriation of the public domain by proprietary interests. A direct beneficiary will be a new class of pure patent companies without any real business or contribution to employment, which will use the threat of litigation to extort payments. Of note is that a sponsor of the Irish Presidency is Microsoft, currently building a large patent portfolio. If the Software Patent text is adopted, Microsoft may use this patent portfolio against Linux and other Open Source projects. Please contact the media, your political representatives, and your government, and urge them to vote against unlimited Software Patents and to revert to the previous European Parliament position.
For further information please see the following links:
http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn
http://swpat.ffii.org/journal/04/cons0507/index.en.html