Yes, Gary, I signed as well - and saw Peter's name among the names of
those who signed. Twice, actually! (01)
My reasons same as Peter's. The original intent of granting patents was
to promote innovation. Right now they hinder it because those attempting
innovation must keep looking over their shoulders for those about to hit
them with lawsuits, etc. (02)
Widening the scope of this response, I believe the time has come to
rethink the "social contract" between corporate bosses and citizens at
large. This includes the whole patents and copyright mess. (03)
Henry (04)
On Thu, 2003-09-18 at 12:20, Peter P. Yim wrote:
> Thanks, Gary.
>
> I've signed it, and am passing it along.
>
> If I may just cite one reason why I signed, I'd say:
>
> "If the patent process were originally intended to encourage
> innovation, then allowing for software patents would hurt that cause a
> lot more than it would promote it."
>
> -ppy
> --
>
> Gary Richmond wrote Thu, 18 Sep 2003 09:11:23 -0400:
> > I'm forwarding most of an email I received from Uta Priss
> > regarding a EU vote that could profoundly effect open-source
> > software in Europe. Uta wrote:
> >
> >> The European Parliament is voting next Tuesday on whether
> >> or not to introduce US-style software patent laws in
> >> Europe. This legislation would mainly help large
> >> companies, who own most of the patents and can afford
> >> patent lawyers. Apparently, even obvious ideas, such as
> >> the progress bar used in software installation and the
> >> folder look for selecting options have been patented (by
> >> IBM and Adobe, respectively). This means that any
> >> open-source software that happens to implement these
> >> ideas, could no longer be used commercially without
> >> licensing these features. It might mean that companies
> >> would no longer be able to use Linux computers.
> >>
> >> There is a petition which can be signed (also by
> >> Non-Europeans):
> >>
> >> http://petition.eurolinux.org/
--
Henry K van Eyken <vaneyken@xxxxxxxxxxxx> (05)
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