The PA for Mr Nigel Farage (The South East UK Independence Party MEP) has weighed in with their response to my letter. As expected, it sides with the anti patent lobby, viewing the directive as a weapon for large multi-national companies rather than a shield for smaller providers. They claim to have already contacted the EU Commissioner to express their opposition.
They have also received “a considerable number” of letters on this subject. It seems the community’s call for letter writing campaigns has been pretty successful!
It’s also interesting that the smaller, more minority parties seem to have vastly more organised offices. Maybe they get less mail to deal with, or perhaps they feel the need to court voters more vigorously? Either way, even though my general views are pretty diverged from the UKIP, it’s another good sign of viable alternative politics in England.
The reply of Dr Caroline Lucas of the Green party landed on my desk this morning, less than half a working day since I sent my letter (see Software patents within the EU). Post marked Sunday, the Greens must have a very efficient operation, and for this I commend them.
Even better is the content of the letter. Whist it seems to be largely a formulaic reply, she notes that she’s received many other letters in a similar vein, and that the Green’s are as much against the March 7th directive text as we in the anti-software patent lobby are. I won’t quote the verbatim text, but it is encouraging to find such strong political support for our cause, even if it is from a minority party.
To those who would say I could have got this reply from a quick search, I did know that this was broadly the Green position but decided to include them in my lettering to bolster their argument (”x software developers in the UK are against this directive”), and to get clarification on their policy. Finding a political party who responds to constituents this quickly has been a positive added bonus.
I’ll report back on other responses as I get them.
“Intellectual property” is an area about which I feel strongly, and which I’m sure all programmers have opinions about. However, if you’re a developer within the EU who doesn’t have an opinion, you need to form one now. If you don’t, then the law will shortly be changed to make any you later choose moot.
The union is currently trying to pass a directive that would fundamentally allow the patenting of software methods within all EU member states. I, like most developers, feel this would be a disaster for our abilties to continue developing world class software. Indeed, I’ve yet to find a programmer in favour of this directive - it seems to be supported solely by lawyers, and huge companies who would love to have another weapon to bludgeon down competition.
Writing about the specific problems with the directive (and the underhand tactics some members of the commission are using to force it through) would be redundant - there is an excellent site at http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ that everyone should visit. Once you’ve finished being astonished by what is being attempted, I encourage you to write to your MPs and MEPs to ensure that this directive does not pass.
I have placed my most recent letter, to the MEPs for South England online here. Feel free to use it as inspiration for a letter of your own, but you must write now, or we’ll have years in court fighting down a law that should never have been passed.
