Hi, I guess that most of you are informed about software patents and know that they are incompatible with most, if not all, free software licenses (if not visit http://tinyurl.com/k64f).
On September 1 the European parliament will vote on a directive that legalizes software patents in Europe. If this directive comes through we will be stuck with software patents in the foreseeable future. Chances of changing the patent law back are close to zero. Because of this, the FFII - an organization that has already done a lot of lobbying against software patents - is organizing an event in Brussels on August 27 as a last minute protest to raise the attention of yet undecided members of the parliament (many of them probably don't have a strong opinion on this subject - they have to vote on dozens of directives each weak). BTW, the event is public, of course. So you are encouraged to join it (a short schedule can be found on http://tinyurl.com/k647). While planning this event we came up with the idea of a parallel "online protest" in the form of a "simulation of the effects of software patents on free software": We want operators of servers running/serving free software to shut down their site (or only offer access to it through some kind of backdoor) and display a statement concerning software patents instead. You can see an example on the FFII web site at http://www.ffii.org. We would like to see this statement to appear on as many web servers as possible (or "all over the web") on 27th August, the day of the event. BTW, in *my personal opinion* the whole thing would have much more of an impact if sites were shut down for a day and no backdoor is offered. Are there any chances that the Debian project participates in this "online protest"? How can I reach people responsible for the web site? Felix Member of the FFII -- To contact me in private don't reply but send mail to felix DOT klee AT inka DOT de
