Just When You Thought It Was Safe…
While I am no longer paid to be a politician as my day-job, some of the major political issues that interest me as a citizen have not gone away. Next week, I will be returning to two of my perennial favourites – Identity Cards and Software Patents.
On Tuesday, the Lib Dem group in the European Parliament will be discussing what to do when the Directive on Computer-Implemented Inventions, which affects the patentability of software within the EU, comes before its next plenary session. This has meant some substantial email exchanges over the last couple of days and some lengthy conversations over the next couple, especially with Chris Davies MEP, leader of the Lib Dem group.
And by happy coincidence, Tuesday is the day that the House of Commons will be debating the re-introduced Identity Cards Bill. There has been some excellent discussion on this recently over at Ideal Government where you can read about the report by experts at the LSE on identity technology and the Government’s reaction to this.
William Heath who runs Ideal Government has also made the find of the month with this wonderful singing dog and chorus line…
Dear Richard,
Thank you for your efforts to persuade Liberal Democrat MEPs to vote against software patents, which may be legalised by the present form of the European CII directive.
I am a Chartered IT Professional with over 30 years’ experience, and I run my own business which specialises in free, libre and open source software (FLOSS) solutions for local SMEs. I have also been a Liberal Democrat supporter for may years, and voted for Andrew Duff in the last two Euro elections. The party’s stance on software patents was an important factor in casting my European vote.
I am deeply disappointed by the European LibDem’s stance on the CII Directive, and conveyed my concern to Diana Wallis via Richard Grayson, our local candidate. I have also written to Andrew Duff to explain why the Directive in its present form will *not* protect my interests, since I cannot afford the costs of continual patent searches or indemnifying my customers against future patent infringements.
As a FLOSS supporter, part of my time goes in collaborating over the Internet with others to develop free software that we use in common. (Actually in my case it’s more reporting bugs than writing code, but all the same it’s collaboration!). I do not know of a single FLOSS developer who supports the concept of software patents, and while I’ve heard of pro-patent organisations that claim to represent SMEs, on inspection these turn out to be funded by large businesses as well as smaller ones.
I very much hope hat your efforts to persuade MEPs of the harm caused by allowing software patents will be successful Please let me know if I can help in any way.
Best regards,
John Ingleby
************
Director,
CoroNet Information Systemns Ltd.
Kings Langley, UK
http://www.coronet.co.uk
GOODBYE SOFTWARE PATENTS!!!!
The parliament has just kicked them into touch.