Europian union is pushing a directive for unlimited patentability of software...Most of the software will become illegal to use after this directive..A wake call to all free software..enthusiasts.

Long we hated..the limitations...imposed by Propreitry software vendors..But this time they have come up with some support of EU.We must protest...Though i am from INDIA..my friends at
http://qt-forum.org are organising a demonstration in BRUSSELS.

Join them if you can.The force behind this is so much that...we have changed..the main page of http://www.qt-forum.org.

Checkout...following links...

http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/...1/index.en.html
http://www.qt-forum.org

I have no problems with legitimate patents ... but I don't think the patents that are being authorized are legitimate. They are allowing patents for things like "One button ordering" ... so if you have a link on your website and you have a cookie that identifies the user, and you have a database holds the users info, then when the user picks the item to buy, and you show everything to him and all him to verify his info (credit card, address, etc....) then he pushes an accept button, you are in violation of the "One Button Ordering" patent.

Ridiculous!!!!!!!!

I'm not near Brussels, but the patent laws are absolutely silly!

patetenting things like that are a horrible idea for the software industry. That would be like patenting the 'for loop.' They start handing out patents for every slightly ingenious software idea we are going to have two componies controling everything. If I had any money I would fly to Brustels to protest, but alas college = no money.