portuguese resolution on free software

[Rui Miguel Seabra]

On Tue, 2004-10-05 at 10:57 +0100, Graham Seaman wrote:
> The attitude of the right in the debate seems to be: the position in 
> favour of software patents will be kept because it is important; the 
> motion on free software will be allowed to pass because it is relatively 
> trivial and only confirms what is happening in practice anyway (unlike 
> the previous free software motion from the BE (Left Block)). Whether 
> this  is true or not, I don't know.

The status quo is unfortunately very bad.
eEurope2005 said "opensource", the translation to portuguese said
"systems with open source", and the portuguese official document said
"open systems". That's about it as far as official government position
goes. It is even strange, current right-wing government defends this
text with teeth and nails, even though it was created by what is now the
leading opposition party when it was in power. These now seem to know
somewhat better, but still (naturally) defend what they did.

A more extreme interpretation of this document would exclude any Free
Software that's not strictly POSIX compliant.

The resolution, if adopted in full, would help create infrastructures
for the adoption of Free Software. However, it _is_ the first official
document of the Parliament featuring the term Software Livre and with
the proper definition :)

The software patent was flunked because INPI said so (well, not
literally, but they define the policy on these issues as all patent
offices around the globe, even if it goes against most software
associations, even the BSA equivalent.)

Regards,

-- 
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?

Please AVOID sending me WORD, EXCEL or POWERPOINT attachments.
See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
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