A recent post on Advogato thinks European software patents are in danger of becoming even worse than in the US. The article is strong on opinion, a bit weaker on facts – but it’s very easy to get upset by this.
Europe has an unusual tradition of many small software companies doing very creative work. Internet has accelerated this – current legislation could end up giving a few big players legal weapons to kill the business of independent software developers.
Several people are trying to do something. Background information to read, petitions to sign and people to contact can be found on savetheweb.org and petition.eurolinux.org.
I signed the petitions. Next week I’ll ask around – if any of the Swedish branch organizations are into this, I’ll post more about that.