Aehso’s Output

Letter from EC Internal Market and Services DG

As promised in yesterday’s post, I’ve uploaded a soft copy of the correspondence received from Commissioner McCreevy’s office.

I’ve got to say, I’m confused by all the legal text but the way this Directive is being forced through the legislative process while so many concerns and questions remain unanswered is very unsettling.

The simple question remains - if this directive is passed and in the future I decide to develop a new product that is based on common software engineering patterns, principals and designs, will I spend more time and money checking to make sure I am not violating existing commercial software patents than building the product itself? Will we need to redefine pair programming to be a laywer<->programmer symbiosis? How competitive do you think this will make EU software companies?
Will the open-source community be able to survive (empty?) threats of legal action from large multinational corporations?

Or would you all prefer to work for souless multinationals for the rest of your lives?

At this stage, it looks like an uphill task to get a qualified majority of the European Parliament to reject the second reading but if you get a free moment, try to register your views. Read this, then find your local Irish MEP (or go here to find listings for other EU Parliament Offices).

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