He didn't mention then why, on our understanding, he was the single solitary MEP to vote against ?
Is there confirmation of this somewhere? I had a look around the europarl site and, as usual, became confused.
Malcohol.
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Malcolm Tyrrell wrote:
He didn't mention then why, on our understanding, he was the single solitary MEP to vote against ?
Is there confirmation of this somewhere? I had a look around the europarl site and, as usual, became confused.
Malcohol.
The FFII people who were there thought the vote against was from him.
But no official record of names and votes was taken -- so we are not conclusively sure.
My understanding is that the committee basically got pretty disappointed and hostile with Charlie McCreevy -- so Crowley's vote can possibly be seen as a Fianna Fail solidarity vote with the Commissioner.
But that assumes we've identified him correctly as the MEP who voted against.
He didn't mention then why, on our understanding, he was the single solitary MEP to vote against ?
So, we're scratching our heads wondering how to get our message to McCreevy - and here's an MEP that strongly agrees with us and maintains good relations with McCreevy. Brilliant.
I'll try to get a meeting with Crowley or his assistant for Monday.
Crowley doesn't have an assistant (or at least didn't used to), so you'll usually get his ansaphone in Brussels/Strasbourg unless you get lucky. He operates via constituency offices in his munster constituency - tel nos maybe on his website. MEPs usually go home Fridays and return Mondays, so your best bet might indeed be in his constituency over the weekend. Or else check his movements next week e.g. any committee meetings in Brussels and suggest by fax to meet him afterwards. (That's assuming that next week is a Brussels week).
Good luck!
Teresa
Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
He didn't mention then why, on our understanding, he was the single solitary MEP to vote against ?
So, we're scratching our heads wondering how to get our message to McCreevy
- and here's an MEP that strongly agrees with us and maintains good
relations with McCreevy. Brilliant.
I'll try to get a meeting with Crowley or his assistant for Monday.
Hi Guys
It's been a while since I've talked with any of you, but I might be able to help with getting a meeting with Mr McCreevy. A friend from work has a contact(s) or family who is a high up member Fianna Fail and/or the current government.
I've talked with my friend many times about the patent issue. He would seem to be in favour of patents in general but does agree with a number of the issues we have raised about the proposes directives.
He did say that he could try and get us extra contact or even a meetings with the relevant minister(s) if that would help us get our message across.
As for arguments against software patents:
* We might need to promote the effects on the commercial software development as much as the effects on free software. * From a free trade point of view monopoly's and closed markets are bad for global business, patents help to promote and in large monopoly's and closed markets. * I would also like to see some discussion on how these patents benefit the common pool of knowledge after the patent expires, and if this extra (?) knowledge is worthily of a 20 year monopoly.
Robert Fitzsimons robfitz@273k.net
On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 06:41:46PM +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
He didn't mention then why, on our understanding, he was the single solitary MEP to vote against ?
So, we're scratching our heads wondering how to get our message to McCreevy
- and here's an MEP that strongly agrees with us and maintains good
relations with McCreevy. Brilliant.
I'll try to get a meeting with Crowley or his assistant for Monday.
-- Ciarán O'Riordan http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/ Free Software in Ireland: http://www.ifso.ie
Robert, On Fri, 2005-02-11 at 00:11 +0000, Robert Fitzsimons wrote:
He did say that he could try and get us extra contact or even a meetings with the relevant minister(s) if that would help us get our message across.
Sounds like fun :)
As for arguments against software patents:
- We might need to promote the effects on the commercial software
development as much as the effects on free software.
I think everyone here agrees that the use of Free Software is a choice that is provided by the existence of a free market. I think that patents are detrimental to the free market that allows Free Software to flourish. As patents are detrimental to the free market, they are detrimental to competition in general and thus effect _software developers_ rather than just Free Software developers. I'd have no problem arguing that patents are detrimental to software development in general.
- From a free trade point of view monopoly's and closed markets are
bad for global business, patents help to promote and in large monopoly's and closed markets.
I think we're on the same wavelength here.
- I would also like to see some discussion on how these patents benefit
the common pool of knowledge after the patent expires, and if this extra (?) knowledge is worthily of a 20 year monopoly.
I have yet to see a patent that is worthy of a 20 year monopoly. Nothing I have seen will be useful after a single generation of technology nor is it non-obvious. Thus I don't think that a common pool of knowledge will result from patent expirations. Particularly given the opaque language they're written in. I don't understand if I'm violating a patent now and I don't think I'll understand the patent language in 20 years to be able to use it.