From: al065564@alumail.uji.es   
      
   NO SOFTWARE PATENTS   
      
   Please Sign this document regarding the new EU directives about   
   Software Patents. In the following lines the purpose of   
   these new directives is explained; furthermore, you can read information   
   from   
   the links   
   that are at the end of the lines.   
      
   Summarizing:   
          The European Union is on the verge of voting if software patents   
   are   
   allowed or not. It includes not only programs but algorithms and   
   methodologies (for example, basic mouse “double click” can be patented).   
      
   To be approved, about 50,000 patents most of them extremely important in   
   terms of software environments management will make illegal almost any   
   software that already exists. Only big corporations that monopolize   
   these patents can afford to pay them. This means that small companies   
   and individuals, among them Free Software community, will be forced to   
   stop and abandon since they can not afford to pay such licences nor the   
   lawsuits they will be involved with in case of not doing it. Some of the   
   developers of free tools (such as Firefox popular navigator or Mozilla)   
   have already begun to stop their work for fear of the new regulations.   
   Please, redistribute this mail to all the people of your list. We need   
   at least 500,000 people singing (at the moment there are 400,000) before   
   the voting will be made, in June-July, so there is not time.   
      
   It is very important that you participate in this event as soon as you   
   can. If we don’t get it, software companies will have to invest in   
   lawyers and this means that their products will indeed be affected (in   
   USA this happens already). This is a claim for quality products, please   
   sing against software patents.   
      
   More info:   
   http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference/examples.html   
   http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference/artefacts.html   
   http://www.base.com/software-patents/software-patents.html   
   http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html   
      
   Thank you.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)