Software Patents in Europe

[Matt Rogers]

On Thursday 08 April 2004 06:22 am, Dirk Mueller wrote:
> Dear KDE contributors,
>
> There is a 2nd Online Demo against Software patents running right now, and
> I think KDE should take part of it.
>
> Many parts of KDE would be directly affected by Software patents. Consider
> progress bars for example. Would you like to use a piece of software that
> does not have progress bars? There are many such patents directly affecting
> our project.
>
> While they don't impose immediate legal danger, they would imply legal
> uncertainty, a great danger for Free Software and more importantly, a huge
> financial risk for Free Software Developers.
>
> I'm planning on adding a temporary protest banner on the frontpage of
> www.kde.org. You can see how it would look here:
>
> http://dirk.mueller.name/kde/
>
> Since such a controversial commit would most likely be reverted if not
> discussed before, and since that would be even worse than not participating
> at all, I'd hereby like to ask you to agree on adding this banner until
> April 15th.
>
> If you have valid concerns against adding such a banner, please share them
> with me. If you're looking for a way to start a flame, go somewhere else.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Dirk
>
> (I'm aware that I used my mueller at kde.org email address for writing this
> mail).

I'm all for it.

Matt