Campaña de NoSoftwarePatents.com
opensource, tecnologia, web November 23rd, 2004
Linus Torvalds, Michael Widenius y Rasmus Lerdorf han presentado una Apelación al Consejo de la Unión Europea, con respecto a aprobar una propuesta para una “directiva para la patentabilidad de invenciones implementadas en el ordenador” (comúnmente conocida como “directiva de las patentes de software”). El 18 de mayo el Consejo había logrado un consenso político para el diseño de una legislación, pero no había tomado una decisión formal con respecto a su aprobación.
Aunque Guatemala no pertenece a la UE, quiero solidarizarme al movimiento porque visualizo que mientras mas restricción por patentes existan, se reducirá la innovación, será más grande la brecha digital y más alto el costo que todos deberemos pagar por el acceso a la tecnología. Entre los máximos exponentes del código libre sobresalen muchos paises de la Unión Europea, las patentes que eventualmente podrían aprobarse dañarian sustancialmente las funcionalidades que muchos software hoy incorporan. Pueden ver más información en la siguiente dirección:
December 23rd, 2004 at 11:52 am
Dear Supporters of NoSoftwarePatents.com:
On Tuesday (21 Dec), the Polish government prevented the Council of the European Union from
adopting a “common position” on software patents. Some of Europe’s leading software developers (Linus
Torvalds, Monty Widenius and Rasmus Lerdorf) had previously denounced the Council’s proposal as
being “deceptive, dangerous, and democratically illegitimate”. Polish deputy minister for science and
information technology Wlodzimierz Marcinski personally flew to Brussels to ask the Council for
more time, at the eleventh hour.
Please go to http://thankpoland.info to thank the Polish government for its courage! On
http://www.NoSoftwarePatents.com, we now have a “Thank you, Poland!” banner on top of each page
(except the forum pages).
Please express your gratitude to Poland because the Polish government did something very unusual
in European politics. Other governments also knew that the proposed EU directive is very
problematic but no one else, other than Poland, took the initiative to prevent a disaster. The governments
of other countries have not yet understood to the full extent how important it is to disallow
software patents in Europe. Many still believe it only concerns a small number of people in the IT
industry while it should actually be the concern of all citizens.
The Polish initiative creates the opportunity to find a better solution at the European level. One
of the things that we hope to achieve is a restart of the EU’s legislative process on software
patents. We believe that the new member states and their politicians (including their MEPs = Members
of the European Parliament) should have the chance to participate in this process from the start.
We will soon contact you to tell you how you can help with that.
If you have time and want to do something now, please write to “your” MEP and tell her or him
about your concerns over software patents, and ask her or him to support the idea of restarting the
legislative process by asking the EU Commission for a so-called renewed referral of its proposal to
the European Parliament. You can find out who “your” MEP is by going to the Websites of the
political parties in your country, or you simply call the information telephone numbers of those
political parties and ask them to help you.
Happy Holiday Season to all of you!
Best regards,
Florian Mueller
Campaign Manager, NoSoftwarePatents.com
florian.mueller@nosoftwarepatents.com