[Fsf-friends] Fwd: Call to vote against software patents in "European of the Year" poll

[Anivar Aravind]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Sullivan <johns at fsf.org>
Date: Oct 26, 2005 8:30 PM
Subject: Call to vote against software patents in "European of the Year" poll




FREE AND OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE LUMINARIES CALL ON WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY
TO VOTE AGAINST SOFTWARE PATENTS IN THE "EUROPEAN OF THE YEAR 2005"
INTERNET POLL

Richard Stallman, Tim O'Reilly, Alan Cox, Rasmus Lerdorf and Monty
Widenius endorse Florian Mueller's candidacy "because he runs on a
NoSoftwarePatents ticket, and that is the message we want to
reinforce"

Brussels (20 October 2005) -- A group of Free and Open-Source Software
(FOSS) celebrities has weighed in on the election of the "European of
the Year 2005" by calling on "software developers and users around the
globe" to vote for Florian Mueller, the founder of the
NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign, in a public online poll. The
illustrious consortium consists of--in alphabetical order of last
name--Alan Cox, Red Hat Fellow and Linux kernel maintainer; Rasmus
Lerdorf, creator of the PHP programming language; Tim O'Reilly, book
publisher and conference organizer; Richard Stallman, President of the
Free Software Foundation (who in 1984 began the work that produced
today's popular GNU/Linux operating system); and Monty Widenius,
creator of the MySQL database.

In a NoSoftwarePatents press release, the community leaders today
expressed their support for the voting recommendations that
NoSoftwarePatents.com has published in more than a dozen languages:
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/vote.html Participants in
the poll are required to make a choice in each of ten categories, and
the voting list provided by NoSoftwarePatents.com explains the role
that various candidates played in the software patent debate so that
voters can reward the opponents of software patents and penalize
pro-patent politicians.

On 22 September, Florian Mueller was nominated for the most
prestigious award in EU politics, the "EV50 Europeans of the
Year". The jury thereby recognized his political efforts against a
legislative proposal that in his opinion would have legalized software
patents in Europe. The European Parliament rejected the bill on 6 July
by a landslide of 648-32 votes.  Mueller, who stressed that he owes
this nomination "to our entire community and especially to the
Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII)", is credited
with founding a multilingual campaign website, speaking out in the
media and at public events, and lobbying MEPs (Members of the European
Parliament) as well as governments and parliaments in select EU member
states.

The European Voice, a major EU-focused weekly, is now conducting an
Internet poll in which Mueller runs against such famous contenders as
U2 frontman Bono, Bob Geldof, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, and
political leaders including British prime minister Tony Blair, the
outgoing German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and Schroeder's
successor designate Angela Merkel. The poll is open to the worldwide
public until 11 November.

Mueller's endorsers pointed out that the FOSS community has played a
particularly active role in the fight against software patents, but
that software patents "threaten us all because they don't discriminate
based on programming language, operating system, or licensing
model". The group is "disconcerted by early reports" that the EU is
now looking at alternative ways of giving software patents a stronger
legal basis in Europe, such as an EU community patent regulation.

The press release underscored the fact that "this is a campaign for a
cause, not for a person": People are asked to vote for Mueller
"because he runs on a NoSoftwarePatents ticket, and that is the
message we want to reinforce".  The NoSoftwarePatents.com label is
right next to Mueller's name on the ballot (http://www.ev50.com/poll).

The endorsement furthermore stated: "Some other nominees also stand
for valid concerns and noble causes. However, those issues and
individuals have already received a lot of coverage in the mass media,
while the implications of software patents to the whole world,
including developing countries, still require much more public
awareness. In the sense that software patents monopolize mental steps,
they are also a human rights issue."

Mueller is confident that he can win the title of the "European of the
Year" against his famous competitors in the light of the "indisputable
e-campaigning power of the anti-software patent movement". In addition
to a campaign statement and voting recommendations, the website
provides an email form that allows supporters to spread the
information (http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/notify.html),
and banners
(http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/banners.html). The two
main slogans of the electoral campaign are "Vote against software
patents" and "Vote for your right to program".

Should he win the popular vote, Mueller said that "everyone is a
winner". He promised "to donate the Microsoft-sponsored prize money to
the FFII", without which he says he "probably wouldn't have become
involved, let alone succeeded, in this political battle".

The EV50 winners will be announced on 29 November. A gala evening at
the Palais d'Egmont in Brussels will be hosted by former European
Parliament President Pat Cox, who was hired by US corporations to
lobby for software patents in the build-up to the 6 July vote. The
EV50 awards are supported by Belgian Prime Minister Guy
Verhofstadt. Sponsors include PR and lobbying firm Burson-Marsteller,
software maker Microsoft Corporation (a major owner and backer of
software patents), and pharmaceutical giant Novartis. The European
Voice is a publication of the Economist group.

NOTE: Florian Mueller founded the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign in
2004 with the support of three corporate sponsors (1&1, Red Hat, MySQL
AB), and managed it until March of 2005. He then gave his website to
the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), the
leading European pressure group that opposes the patentability of
computer programs.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Florian Mueller florian.mueller at nosoftwarepatents.com

--
John Sullivan
Program Administrator        | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23
51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl.  | Fax:   (617)542-2652
Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA    | GPG:   AE8600B6


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