[ILUG] Eek! McCreevy wants to legalise Software Patents via a US-EU patent treaty

[Paul Mc Auley]

On Tue May 20 2008 16:20:48 James McCarthy wrote:
|  I believe it was someone else who first mentioned the United States of
|  Europe, but I do agree with your comment on autonomy. However, we
|  already joined, and gave up the required autonomy to do so. We don't
|  actually have to vote yes to stay in the EU, say no & everything stays
|  the same. Say yes and who knows.

Oh that's easy. They'll draft us into a service sub-race for the continent; 
make us drive on the right hand side of the road and while we're about it 
they'll confiscate anything running even a trace of GPL software and ship it 
off to RMS.

For crying out loud, argument by FUD? If we're playing that game why don't we 
play the straw man card and look at the headliners behind the the sides.
Weighing in for Yes we have FF, FG, Labour and those noted capitalist running 
dog lackeys SIPTU amonst others.
For No we have SF, SWP, Libertas (hands up who heard of them before this year?) 
and at least one organisation with the words "National Platform" in there 
somewhere.
The Greens got a numerical but not passing majority on the motion to support it 
and the FAI is grumbling in way that suggests the poor mouth card.

What is the referendum on anyway? Is it just a matter of an amendment of the 
form that we sign up to the provisions of the treaty or is it a list of 
specific changes?

IMNSHO the big problem is that we've added an awful lot of crud to our 
constitution that should really be at the legislative layer. The constitution 
(.ie or .eu) should be a relatively simple framework within which laws are 
made. Instead we get this behemoth which just seems to gather more amendments 
as it rolls along. That said, I don't think there's the faintest chance on 
being able to achieve consensus on such a nice slim document.
	Paul 
-- 
--- Paul Mc Auley <paulmc at peema.org>
--
-                  Tony Giardino: Charlie, two words: therapy.
                           -- So I Married An Axe Murder