John Richard Smith wrote:I quite agree, however if I may say so, without offence, most haven't a clue about what we are talking about, so that beyond registering a concern it's damn near impossible for them to understand the importance of the situation. It's important that GPL means GPL and people cannot come along afterwards and take that right away saying they hold the licence and am withdrawing it from GPL use. It's also imprtant that once some piece of code is offered under GPL that someone else can not then come along and patent it just because noone has up to then. So that the it is iportant to assure that the act of offering a GPL on a piece of software means it's public right of use is assured in law. It's because none of this is assured that the doubt creeps in, and if along with that new EU law, it is going to make patenting software easier, it's important that GPL is recognised as such and upheld in law.
So does this leave us with a satisfactory position ? I'm not at all sure.
No, it is not satisfactory - look again at the last 2 paragraphs of Caroline Lucas's message:
However, the draft Directive remains ambiguous and contradictory
(articles 2 & 4 contradict each other, with the preamble contradicting
the legal articles). As currently drafted I believe it will open the
gate for software patents in the European Union, just as the Commission
and UK government originally intended. It is for this reason that, after
voting in favour of the amendments mentioned above, but I voted against
the Directive as a whole.
Furthermore, and rather ominously, given our success in the Parliament,
the Commission may now withdraw the draft Directive and seek a
legislative route that does not involve democratic scrutiny. We must all
therefore remain alert and continue to campaign on this issue.
But at least the Green MEPs are aware of the situation, unhappy about it (as we are), and prepared to keep working on it. I've asked Caroline to keep me informed of developments. We now need to keep up the pressure on our MEPs - all of them, not just the Green ones!
Margot
So how do we register this,
I write to my MEP , and say Look hear that piece of new EU paternt law stinks .
Well, they are going to say , not unreasonably, why does it stink ?
So how do I put the case ?
I'm sure I'm no lawyer.
How can we propose to the EU how to construct good law that enables those who wish to hold and retain a licence on their own product, yet enable those who wish to ,either, that product under licence , but retain the ownership whilst offering free use, or , offer the product under GPL and that offer have full binding rights to let the user have full use without let or hinderance for the user to use or modify as they see fit.
See this all needs a set of lawyers working out good law proposals on our behalf.
I guess that this needs a project team from the EU law dept to come down to grass roots level and discuss what needs to be done to strengthen the right of GPL products users rights in law.
My two penny's worth.
John
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John Richard Smith
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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