[Patents] Public support of free software in Europe

[Nicolas Pettiaux nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org]

Here is a very good news to me ...=20

Nice, 8 November 2000

The French city of Nice is hosting the 2000 edition of the European
Information Society Technologies conference (IST2000), a large event
attended by about 3500 people where status about the developpement and
support on the important subject of IST in Europe is stressed and summari=
zed.

More info can be found on http://istevent.cec.eu.int/

This year event whose title is "The Information Society for All" was
introduced by Mrs. Nicole Fontaine, President of the European Parliament.

In her opening speech (to be found in French at
http://istevent.cec.eu.int/sessiondocs/Summary_417_sumfr_pdf.pdf, see end=
 of
page 6), Mrs Fontaine said :
"With this intention, the role of education will be essential, but it is
necessary also that all the Member States of the Union understand
that it is in the interest of their national cohesion, to multiply the
convergent initiatives, and in particular to develop the " free
software " and the " sources open " in particular within the public
institutions, to exclude the discriminatory accesses, to reduce the
personal costs of access to Internet, to accept the redistribution of
the European funds which are devoted to the assistance with the
isolated areas, handicapped or in difficulty of the economic
situation, so that the company of information is really accessible to
all." (personnal translation)

This is quite a support for the free and open-source software movement.

Further support and evidence of this was the fact that a plenary session
fully devoted to "Free / open source software" was organized in the
 afternoon.

The contributors were

Mr. Richard Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundati=
on,

Mr. Guillermo Lozano, president of the Columbian association of researche=
rs
for the advancement of sciences and technologies,

Mr. Mark Cathcart, Technology strategist from IBM Corporate Technology
Marketing,

Mr. Jes=FAs M. Gonz=E1lez-Barahona, professor at Universidad Rey Juan Car=
los
Spain, and

Mr. Erkki Liikanen, member of the European Commission for Enterprise and
Information Society.

(for more information see
http://istevent.cec.eu.int/en/details.asp?session=3D4&lang=3Deng ;)

The keynote speech, given by a Richard Stallman, provided an overview of =
the
state of the play in this area. He traced the origin, reasons and
characteristics of the free software movement, explained the licenses tha=
t
are a decisive key and alerted the audience about the problem of software
patents.

Guillermo Lozano gave an overview of the benefit of using Free/Open softw=
are
in developing countries, and explained why they can contribute
significatively to the developpement of these countries and why, in this
specific domain recongized for their importance in the world, these "poor=
"
countries can contribute to the wealth of the world, and that this is
exceptionnal.

Mr. Mark Cathcart gave us the point of view of a key private company, IBM=
,
showing why and IBM's implication was important and profound, telling us =
that
IBM is really building a strategy on Free/Open software. About the questi=
on
of software patent, Mark Cathcart told us why IBM as a company needed
sometimes to protect itself, that in the present world there was sometime=
s
few other ways than using patents but also that IBM would probably seriou=
sly
consider another way of  doing if it exists (that can encourage people to
look and try to find another better system)

Mr. Jes=FAs M. Gonz=E1lez-Barahona explained the audience why learning co=
mputer
sciences with Free/Open software was better than with proprietary softwar=
e,
allowing the students to use more the systems they studied, to learn the
foundation and building blocks of these systems, and also learn the best =
way
to contribute and write software by reading and learning from the best
contribution, in the very same way a novelist learn by reading novels.

Finally commissioner Mr. Erkki Liikanen told us the importance of  Free/O=
pen
software for Europe, and presented some of the activities of the European
Commission has engaged in supporting and financing the developpement and =
use
of Free/Open software. He told us that more would come with the next prog=
ram.
We are all expecting to see it.

Due to the bad weather that covered Europe on Monday, we could not hear M=
r.
Thierry Carcenac, representative. Mr Thierry Carcenac is member of
parlemement French.  He is a also president of the general Council of the
Tarn and assistant Maire of Lescure-to Albigensian in the Tarn.
He is charged by the French government of a mission concerning the
use and basis of the information systems in the administrations which
will examine in particular the interest of the Free / open software and t=
he
means of supporting them.

Finally, some members of the audience have commented that there were law
propositions in Europe and elsewhere (France, Belgium, Brazil) about the =
use
of open standards, for example in administration.

--
Nicolas Pettiaux
Avenue du P=E9rou 29 - B-1000 Bruxelles
Email: nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org