On Fri, Jul 02, 2004 at 03:45:24PM +0100, Nick Daniels wrote:
I thought somebody maybe interested in this:- "On May 18th, by a thin majority, the European Council of Ministers voted in favor of throwing out the European Parliament's efforts to keep software patents out of Europe.
[snip]
http://slashdot.org/articles/04/07/02/1318220.shtml?tid=155&tid=185&...
Can anyone explain this? There are too many "outs". The tone of the article suggests this event is a good thing if you do not like software parents.
Tim.
On Sat, 2004-07-03 at 19:35, Tim Green wrote:
On Fri, Jul 02, 2004 at 03:45:24PM +0100, Nick Daniels wrote:
I thought somebody maybe interested in this:- "On May 18th, by a thin majority, the European Council of Ministers voted in favor of throwing out the European Parliament's efforts to keep software patents out of Europe.
[snip]
http://slashdot.org/articles/04/07/02/1318220.shtml?tid=155&tid=185&...
Can anyone explain this? There are too many "outs". The tone of the article suggests this event is a good thing if you do not like software parents.
1. European Council of Ministers votes to reject European Parliament's amendments and support unlimited patentability, with the Commission using dubious tactics to get some countries' votes. 2. It is discovered that the Dutch minister, who voted for the council's text (ie against the European Parliament, for unlimited patentability) had deliberately misled the national Parliament which had specifically called on him to vote against software patents. 3. Dutch Parliament passes a motion forcing the Dutch minister to retract his vote --- something which is legally possible but has never been done before. This would not on its own be enough to change the result but it is of great symbolic significance and could encourage other countries to reconsider their positions.
Alex
Tim.
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Tim Green