I would like to see us get involved with this. Personally, I am curious to see whether we could bring a class action suit against the United States government under the arguement that software patents, in their current state, violate a Free Software programmer's freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is a gauranteed human right and is supposed to be stronger legally than a patent, which is a tool of convenience. I think it is arguable that many programmers are as dedicated to the creation of Free Software as any religious person is to their chosen method of worship.
E On Sat, Mar 20, 1999 at 12:24:20PM +0100, J.H.M. Dassen wrote: > This may well be of interest to SPI, or indivual readers of this list - > please keep discussion of it on gnu.misc.discuss. > > Ray > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pierre Sarrazin) > Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss > Subject: A steering committee for the LPF? > Date: 20 Mar 1999 00:20:57 -0500 > Organization: League for Programming Freedom > Lines: 34 > Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Since October 1998, I have been maintaining the website of the League > for Programming Freedom at <http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/>. On this site, > there is an email address where people can write to offer their help. > > A number of people have offered to help, but unfortunately there is no > defined agenda for the LPF. The League has no formal organization > right now and I am limiting myself to the role of a webmaster. > > I am posting this article here in hopes of starting a discussion among > people who would be interested in forming a steering committee for the > LPF. These people would have to decide what they specifically want to > do to obtain the abolition of software patents by the > U.S. Congress. The LPF also opposes user interface copyrights, but > since a major 1996 U.S. Supreme Court decision, this problem seems to > have receded for now (see the website for details). > > The job of the committee would be to define a strategy to eventually > convince Congress of outlawing software patents. Recent news about > Microsoft's patent on style sheets and Sightsound's threats against > MP3.com (regarding patents over downloading audio over a network) may > provide arguments to convince lawmakers that software patents should > be abolished as soon as possible before they become an intolerable > impediment to the software community. A letter-writing campaign might > be a good start; I could post the results on the website. > > Greg Aharonian's Internet Patent News Service has published some > issues about the two patents I mentioned: > <http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html#IPNS> > > The front page of the LPF website shows an index to the article > "Against Software Patents", which is a very good read for anyone who > wishes to have a reminder of why software patents are a threat. > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- ___________________________________________________________________ Ean Schuessler Director of Strategic Weapons Systems Novare International Inc. A Devices that Kill People company *** WARNING: This signature may contain jokes.
