[DMCA-Activists] Vote Against SW Patents in Internet Poll

[Seth Johnson]

(From an FFII Supporter list.  -- Seth)

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Subject: Please vote against software patents in an Internet poll
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 09:16:11 +0100
From: FFII <address@hidden>


Dear supporter of the FFII,

The FFII has kindly enabled me to contact you with this campaign
message on my own behalf.  You are soon going to receive an email
from the Board of the FFII.  The FFII will announce this year's
General Assembly, which is going to take place in Brussels on 29
November.  If you plan to attend, please make a note in your
calendar!

In the meantime, please consider voting for me (and other
candidates who I recommend) in the public Internet poll for the
"EV50 Europeans of the Year" awards, the most prestigious series
of awards in EU politics.  It would send a strong message to
politicians, the press and the public if a vocal opponent of
software patents were elected as the new "European of the Year".
We can simultaneously ensure that a couple of our political
allies, especially Michel Rocard MEP, also receive awards, while
the proponents of unlimited software patentability (such as
commissioner McCreevy) should come away empty-handed.

The poll is open to the worldwide public (including
non-Europeans), and the idea is explained on this page:
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/index.html
Specific voting recommendations are available on this page:
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/vote.html
Those pages are available in 14 languages.  You will also find an
email form on that site, which makes it quick and easy to inform
others of this campaign, and banners for your website.

Richard Stallman (President of the Free Software Foundation), Tim
O'Reilly (book publisher and conference organizer), Alan Cox
(Linux kernel maintainer), Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) and Monty
Widenius (MySQL) have endorsed our voting recommendations in a
press release:
http://www.ag-ip-news.com/GetArticle.asp?Art_ID=2254&lang=en

Should I win, the FFII will receive the prize money, and will be
duly credited in my acceptance speech and a subsequent press
release.

In addition to the general information that you find on the
website, let me also say a few things about the unique
relationship between the FFII and myself.

By participating in an FFII conference in April of last year, I
became more aware of the political controversy over software
patents.  By subsequently participating in various FFII
activities, I realized that citizens like us can indeed influence
a political debate.  With the financial support of three
corporate sponsors (1&1, Red Hat, MySQL), I then founded the
NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign as a complement to the FFII's own
website and lobbying.  From the conceptual stage on, I cooperated
closely with the FFII. Without the FFII, I would not have become
involved, let alone been impactful or successful, in the fight
against an ill-conceived piece of patent legislation.

About six months ago, I handed the NoSoftwarePatents.com site to
the FFII, and if you look at the voting form for the EV50 awards,
then you will notice that the NoSoftwarePatents.com name is right
next to my name.  I'm running on the NoSoftwarePatents ticket,
and in the name of a website that will, hopefully, be a
cornerstone of future FFII campaigns in the software patent
context.

The FFII and I jointly received this year's CNET Networks UK
Technology Award in the Outstanding Contribution to Software
Development category.  It would only have been fair if we had
always been jointly nominated for such awards and honors, but
even where that is not formally the case, it's still the way I
view it in practice.

For your convenience, here is another link to the voting
recommendations:
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/vote.html

Thank you for considering to lend me your support, and once
again, thanks to the FFII for everything!

Best regards,

Florian Mueller
address@hidden

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