[Fsfe-ie] MEP letter, updated, final comments?

[Niall Douglas]

On 25 Aug 2003 at 2:56, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:

> > The order is derived by the parliament bureaucracy which is supposed
> > to place the most important amendments first - this being derived
> > from committee recommendations. Unfortunately, as with all things a
> > large party or powerful interests can influence the order.
> 
> Okay, so "all amendments by CULT, ITRE, and Greens/EFA" is a
> reasonable request?
> (since duplicates will be skipped)

Yes. The Greens in particular have some good radical amendments.

> Just thinking now, would it be best to say "vote Yes to all C, I, G/E
> amendments, and No to the rest".  This would prevent our MEPs
> accidentally voting Yes to a bad amendment.  Right idea?

Mmm. Dunno. From the cross-selection of amendments I read (there are 
80?) almost all of them seemed like an improvement. Some would make 
the directive nearly worthless which would be fine by me, though I'd 
like the amendment (which I proposed) invalidating all existing EPO 
software patents. No one in europarl has proposed that :)

Try to reiterate that the directive is a really bad law and should 
really be rejected outright. Or completely replace the text with one 
saying "From henceforth all patenting of the ideas forming software 
shall not be permitted by member states". I know this isn't much 
help, but strongly emphasising the committee recommendations is 
probably enough. As far as I saw, there weren't really any bad 
amendments proposed at all.

BTW I received a personal response from Arlene McCarthy to the most 
recent letter I sent. She sounded rattled. I think this time round 
the opposition has been much better organised.

Cheers,
Niall