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Simon Willison’s Weblog

No EU Software Patents

Munich, Germany (23 November 2004). The three most famous European authors of open-source software have issued an appeal against software patents on NoSoftwarePatents.com. Linus Torvalds (Linux), Michael Widenius (MySQL) and Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) urge the EU Council, which will convene later in the week, not to adopt a draft directive on software patents that they consider “deceptive, dangerous, and democratically illegitimate”. They also call on the Internet community to express solidarity by placing NoSoftwarePatents.com links and banners on many Web sites.

Defend the future! Europe's better off without software patents. NoSoftwarePatents.com

It would be nice if someone with some serious design credentials would knock up some more aesthetically pleasing banners.

Posted 23rd November 2004 at 2:26 pm

This is No EU Software Patents by Simon Willison, posted on 23rd November 2004.

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6 comments

  1. Simon,

    I'm sure a trained monkey could do better than that - serious design credentials not required!

    I'll have a go later if I have time...

    Tim - 23rd November 2004 14:45 - #

  2. That's great to see big names supporting the no software patents movement.

    I tried to make a banner

    Mathieu 'P01' HENRI - 23rd November 2004 16:09 - #

  3. i am sure that florian would appreciate contributions of additional banners.

    jim winstead - 23rd November 2004 19:55 - #

  4. When it comes to designing things like that banner, I'm probably less qualified than a trained monkey. But I am confident that I could make a better banner.

    Scott Johnson - 23rd November 2004 20:00 - #

  5. No kidding! I'm using http://semacode.org/about/images/noipatents.jpg but it's still really ugly and I don't like the US iconography. --simon

    S Woodside - 24th November 2004 00:33 - #

  6. But that statue is French! Or maybe it's an attempt to make everyone think about what a mess software patents have made of the US industry? Please ignore straw-grasping.

    Joshua Messer - 24th November 2004 19:57 - #

Comments are closed.

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