Views
FFII's view is that software patents present a burden, not a benefit to society. It backs this position up citing extensive studies.
FFII has been active on this front since 2000 when, according to the FFII, an attempt to change the European Patent Convention to legitimise software patents failed. In 2003, it strongly but indirectly lobbied the European Parliament against the proposed Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.
FFII is the leading European NGO on this issue. Through its partnership with many other European organisations with the same goal, it has a reach across all nations of the EU.
The EuroLinux anti-software-patent petition, supported and promoted by FFII, was signed by more than 1,500 SMEs, many thousand software developers, tens of thousands of software users system administrators as well as a number of scientists, academics and economists for a total of 400,000 signatories.
FFII organises conferences about the topic, usually in Brussels, such as the conference which took place on April 14, 2004 together with a demonstration of more than 400 people against software patents the one on November 9-10, 2004. In Karlsruhe, FFII organised a demonstration of about 1,000 people against software patents.
Read more about this topic: Foundation For A Free Information Infrastructure
Famous quotes containing the word views:
“It is surely a matter of common observation that a man who knows no one thing intimately has no views worth hearing on things in general. The farmer philosophizes in terms of crops, soils, markets, and implements, the mechanic generalizes his experiences of wood and iron, the seaman reaches similar conclusions by his own special road; and if the scholar keeps pace with these it must be by an equally virile productivity.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“Parents must begin to discover their children as individuals of developing tastes and views and so help them be, and see, themselves as thinking, feeling people. It is far too easy for a middle-years child to absorb an over-simplified picture of himself as a sloppy, unreliable, careless, irresponsible, lazy creature and not much more—an attitude toward himself he will carry far beyond these years.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)