[Patents] Re: 80000 signatures for software patent free Europe

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> <<The Eurolinux petition now has 80.000 signatures!>>

> 80,000 out of how many millions of people?

How many millions of people care/know about questions of software
copyright vs patents in Europe ?

I am not sure it is more than one million.

> Doesn't sound like that many people really buy your pitch.

That's why we are going to mobilise more.

But professional managers of net-political campaigns have told me that
this one is the largest one in the field of cyber-rights that exists so
far.  The second largest one was one against spamming, which collected
30000 signatures.

Given that spamming annoys every single Internet user while the questions
of software IP regimes concern mainly software professionals, I think you
can not deny that the public response has been quite good.

What is even more astonishing is that 300 companies expressed their
support.  Usually companies choose to keep a low profile on political
issues, and many companies who supported us did so in spite of real
or perceived pressures from their chief customers, who are holders of
large patent portfolios.

To be able to mobilise this much against well entrenched and established
forces is quite a sensation, I think.  I would not have believed that it
would work, before I tried.

--
Hartmut Pilch                                           http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation        http://swpat.ffii.org/
80000 signatures against software patents         http://www.noepatents.org/