[Freegis-list] Petition against Software-Patents

[Frank Koormann]

Dear all,

the Commission of the European Union has set on track a process 
to legalize software patents in Europe. Software in Europe is seen 
as liturature and hence protected by the copyright. By law it is 
impossible to patent software although the European Patent Office 
already let patents on software. Some people call this abuse.

We at Intevation (as the maintainer of the FreeGIS project) are
convinced that introducing Software Patents in Europe will affect
the development of Free Software. As the examples from around the world
demonstrate, patents are not used to protect genious ideas but to
fight competitors. I am concerned that software patents in future
may bring some free software projects to their knees. Also the 
future of free GIS software depends on the absence of software patents.

I would like to ask you to visit the site 
http://petition.eurolinux.org
and - if you follow their arguments - to sign the petition to the
European Parliament. This goes especially to those located in Europe
but also everybody else concerned about this issue is invited to sign
the petition.

Kind regards,

        Frank Koormann

        CEO Intevation

-- 
Frank Koormann                              http://intevation.net/~frank/
 Professional Service around Free Software         http://intevation.net/
 FreeGIS Project                                   http://freegis.org/
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