Re: [Fsfe-uk] Stalls at Marxism 2003

[James Heald]

Timothy Baldwin wrote:

>
> I can't find any relevant texts about software patents, they all seem
> to address the issue from a small business persective.
>

The small business perspective is useful, even so.  (Aren't Marxists 
supposed to be interested in the economic view of society ?)


The definitive anti-swpat leaflet hsn't yet been written (IMHO), but
here are some links which might be useful (a first hack, not comprehensive):


NATIONAL CAMPAIGN SITES:

BE:  AEL:  http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/FightingSWPatents
NL:  Vrijschrift: http://www.vrijschrift.org/swpat/index.html
DK:  http://www.softwarepatenter.dk/
CATALONIA: http://www.tinet.org/~xdrudis/Patents/


ARTWORK:
http://www.vrijschrift.org/swpat/art/index.html


TEXT:

Petition of scientists:
http://www.softwarepatenter.dk/dokumenter/petition.pdf

The Danger Of Software Patents To Europe
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/TheDangerOfSoftwarePatentsToEurope

Recent summary for the press: 
http://www.vrijschrift.org/swpat/press/eu_voting_030630.en.html

Laura Creighton, venture capitalist:
-- why sw patents aren't justified, don't help small businesses
http://www.vrijschrift.org/swpat/030508_1/

Interview with Michel Rocard, ex socialist PM of France
-- swpat as a danger to civilization
http://www.aful.org/wws/arc/patents/2003-06/msg00221.html

RMS - Cambridge
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/stallman-patents.html
also at
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,s2107481,00.html

Tord Jansson, Bladeenc
http://bladeenc.mp3.no/articles/software_patents.html

The position according to McCarthy
http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/europarl/05/contrib/amccarthy/amccarthy030503.pdfand

And a rebuttal
http://www.tinet.org/~xdrudis/Patents/aboutMcCarthyConsiderations.html
http://www.tinet.org/~xdrudis/Patents/aboutMcCarthyConsiderations.pdf

A poster on Slashdot
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=63050&cid=5884440


"Software patents are like landmines for programmers. At each design 
decision, there is a chance you will step on a patent and it will 
destroy your project. Considering the large number of ideas that must be 
combined in a modern program, the danger becomes very large."
  -- [Richard Stallman]


SOME PRESS ARTICLES:

When IBM turned up to shake-down Sun:
http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

Software Developers Haunted by Patent Madness
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,24011,00.html

Recent E-week editorial:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1122081,00.asp

RMS & Nick Hill in the Guardian; Arlene McC; Readers replies
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,970294,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,975126,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,980180,00.html


BITS FROM THE FFII SITE:

Quotations of critics of swpats
http://swpat.ffii.org/archive/quotes/index.en.html



Hope some of these are useful

Everybody else feel free to add more goodies that I have missed.