Dear Supporters of ThankPoland.info,
By thanking the Polish government for its courageous intervention
against
software patents, you have already been very helpful (you may refer to
http://wiki.ffii.org/Sejm050216En for details and some pictures of the
"Thank Poland" ceremony which took place in Warsaw in February of this
year, in the Polish Parliament, Sejm.)
There is now a new and extremely similar opportunity to make a
statement
against software patents by taking a minute to fill out a simple
Internet
form. The founder of the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign, Florian
Mueller,
is currently running in an Internet poll for the "European of the Year"
against such celebrities as U2 frontman Bono and politicians like
Schroeder, Merkel and Blair. For voting recommendations and further
information, please click here:
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/vote.htmlWhen I was in Warsaw, I learned from Polish politicians that Florian's
NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign website has had a significant impact
among
them. Two Polish politicians have told me personally that they had
printed out information from NoSoftwarePatents.com and used it to
inform
other politicians about the issue. Florian, who had come to Warsaw for
the
"Thank Poland" ceremony, also played a key role during the press
conference
afterwards.
In view of all this, I have no doubt that Florian deserves to win those
"Campaigner of the Year" and "European of the Year" awards. There is a
realistic chance that we can, by voting for him on the Internet, make
him
the new "European of the Year", which would demonstrate to politicians,
the
press and the public that software patents are highly unpopular.
Hence,
every vote for Florian is a strong vote for freedom from software
patents.
It is necessary to vote for one candidate in each of the ten
categories.
Florian is running in two of them, and there are also other categories
in
which we can support those who opposed software patents and vote
against
those who wanted to make software legally patentable in Europe.
Best regards,
Norbert Bollow
P.S. Everyone can participate in this Internet poll, including
non-Europeans. On the NoSoftwarePatents.com site, texts (and
banners) are available in more than a dozen languages. You can
also
send emails to make friends aware of this Internet referendum.
Today, five celebrities from the world of free and open-source
software (Richard Stallman, Tim O'Reilly, Alan Cox, Rasmus
Lerdorf
and Monty Widenius) also called on their supporters to vote for
Florian:
http://www.ag-ip-news.com/GetArticle.asp?Art_ID=2254〈=en