Simon Willison’s Weblog

No EU Software Patents

23rd November 2004

Munich, Germany (23 November 2004). The three most famous European authors of open-source software have issued an appeal against software patents on NoSoftwarePatents.com. Linus Torvalds (Linux), Michael Widenius (MySQL) and Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) urge the EU Council, which will convene later in the week, not to adopt a draft directive on software patents that they consider “deceptive, dangerous, and democratically illegitimate”. They also call on the Internet community to express solidarity by placing NoSoftwarePatents.com links and banners on many Web sites.

It would be nice if someone with some serious design credentials would knock up some more aesthetically pleasing banners.