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August 27, 2003
EU vote on sofware patents
Today, many sites are protesting the upcoming EU vote on software patents scheduled for September 1st. To date, the EU does not officially allow software patents (although they have been granted in the past). The US does allow software patents and this has lead to things like Amazon's "One-Click" ordering being patented. A vote to grant software patents in the EU may effect Open Source development, as any developer could not be sure that he was infringing on a software patent when developing say a new component. To show their protest, some sites have changed their main page for the day. Examples: Orixo, Outerthought.
Updates: Andrew has a good post on the subject. The Cocoon page is protesting too.
Posted by Matthew at August 27, 2003 09:41 AM