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Dear Gentoo Developers, |
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|
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some of you might have heard already that the FFII is organizing |
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some last minute protest against Software Patent legalization in the EU |
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(the European Parliament plans to vote on this topic in the beginning of |
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September, possibly as early as September 1st). In addition to a |
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demonstration and conference in Brussels the FFII is encouraging free |
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software projects and others to participate in an online demonstration. |
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For more information read: |
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http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/demo0819 (General press release) |
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http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo (Online Demo) |
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|
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As a member of the FFII I'm trying to spread the news about this online |
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demonstration and try to motivate free software projects to participate |
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in it. However, contacting all possible candidates individually is a |
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tedious task. Therefore, a fellow FFII member recently had the idea to |
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ask maintainers of Debian packages to help us out: |
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|
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A systematic way to do it might be sending a mail to |
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debian-devel (I guess that's the list) and ask each debian developer |
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to please send a message to upstream maintainers or file a bug (a |
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political system bug which can kill the project) against the project |
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they maintain to ask them to join the online demo. |
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|
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I already contacted Debian, but then Gentoo (and others) came into my |
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mind as well. So: Could some of you please help us? I appended a sample |
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text below that maintainers/developers could use when contacting the |
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projects that they are affiliated with. |
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|
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To make a message more convincing it might be a good idea to find a |
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patent a project is infringing upon. Just take a look at the Software |
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Patent Horror Gallery (http://swpat.ffii.org/patents), the patent |
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database of the European Patent Office at http://ep.espacenet.com |
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(includes US and other patents), or, if you understand German, |
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http://patinfo.ffii.org/patente.html. Note that many trivial patents |
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(http://swpat.ffii.org/patente) are already granted in the US and, in |
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spite of the current legislation, in the EU (see Art. 52 of the European |
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Patent Convention). |
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|
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Felix |
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|
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|
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Sample message: |
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|
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Subject: Could ... help protest against SWPats? |
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|
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Hi, |
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|
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as you might have heard the FFII (http://www.ffii.org) is organizing a |
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demonstration and conference on August 27th (see the latest press |
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release at http://swpat.ffii.org/neues/03/demo0819/index.en.html). The |
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goal is to make people and MEPs (members of the European parliament) |
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aware of the dangers surrounding the legalization of software patents |
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that may be up for vote in the European Parliament as early as September |
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1st. The main part of the event will take place in Brussels. In addition |
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there will be an "online demonstration" whose idea is to simulate the |
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effects of Software Patents by shutting down web sites on August 27th |
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(http://swpat.ffii.org/gruppe/demo/index.de.html). |
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|
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Is there any chance that the ...... project participates in this event? |
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Note that the ....... web site doesn't need to be closed down |
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completely. On http://swpat.ffii.org/gruppe/demo/index.de.html there are |
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several examples on how it's possible to show ones concerns without |
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taking such drastic measures, but there's no need to stick to the |
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examples. |
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Regards, |
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|
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...... |
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|
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-- |
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To contact me in private don't reply but send mail to |
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felix DOT klee AT inka DOT de |
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|
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-- |
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gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |
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