[Fsfe-ie] Is the Councils directive text online somewhere? (p.s. we're gonna win this one)

Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran at member.fsf.org
Thu May 20 14:21:16 CEST 2004


Is there a copy of the consolidated current directive text anywhere?

I recommend that everyone listen to the recordings of the Councils meeting:
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/Transcription

Transcripts are also linked from there, but the tone of voice etc. is
interesting.

Anyway, basically, the people in the room didn't understand the implications
of the text (that's our fault).

Bolkinstien added an amendment: "computer programs will not be patentable as
such" - this (rightly) fooled most people into thinking that software would
not be patentable.  Really, it just means you can't patent software as
software, you have to patent "software running on a computer".  I think the
rejected part of the German amendment would have closed this loophole.

There's interesting reading here:
http://kwiki.ffii.org/index.cgi?Cons040518En

Anyway, the point is that the Coucil members were on our side, we just
hadn't told them precisely what we want - so in the second round, if we do
our job, we'll win.  We told them "no to software patents", an they think
they've done that.  We should have said "no to ''as such''", and similar
textual lobbying rather then implication lobbying.


-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan
http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/
Irish Free Software Organisation: http://ifso.ie



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