[ILUG] Fwd: Mary Harney's Answer on Software Patents

[NW Dublin]

John Gay wrote:

>I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Harney today in Drogheda as she was 
>campaining for her PD councillors.
>
>
>I asked her why, after a full year of Europeans stating their cases regarding 
>software patents, the Irish government had decided to strip out all the 
>ammendments that had been carefully drafted to limit the damages such patents 
>could cause?
>
>Her answer was "You must be one of those LINUX fanatics." Which she pronounced 
>LIE-NOX.
>
>  
>
Before I begin, I don't think pronounciation matters!   Yes it would be 
nice if everyone could pronounce everything correctly but on the grand 
scale of things I'd settle for a Tanaiste who understood the issues and 
called it lianusk.

We have some attack vectors perhaps?

If she had been informed in the slightest about the issue she would have 
said "Free Software fanatics".   This is not a Linux issue and I wonder 
what gave her the impression it was?   Perhaps a major sponsor of the EU 
Presidency?   Or perhaps ILUG and Linux enthusiasts are more vocal than 
other Free Software groups, or just plain larger and hence more noticable?

Secondly is it not then fair to say (if the above is a reasonable 
representation of the exchange) that the Tanaiste has dismissed the 
European Parliment as Linux fanatics?

Finally, and most importantly in my book, it gives us a coherent (if 
stupid) argument to attack, on a local level.   Lets see if we cannot 
get Mary Harney (and the FF leadership) a few open letters from other 
groups opposed to Software Idea Patents (see, I listen to Stallman :-)   
So what other groups oppose S.I.P.s?   Mathematicians?   Educators?   
Economists?   Non-Software companies?   Small to Medium (ugh) software 
companies?   Any other groups we might approach to help set the record 
straight or who have already gone on record?

Let's see this as an opportunity to take an argument and destroy it, 
rather then to riducle the argument and dismiss it?

Niall