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Submission + - Swedish hackers in a squat fight eviction (hackerspaces.org) 4

Submitted by lekernel
lekernel writes: The newly opened Abbenay Hackspace in Stockholm has released a call for support in their struggle to keep their space. It was an empty office building until squatters moved in. The discussions with officials have stalled completely and the squatters live under the constant threat of police raids. Abbenay Hackspace is asking people to contact the landlord, and explain why creative spaces such as hackerspaces are important to them. Is there room for hackerspaces in major cities? Or is squatting the only viable strategy for hackerspaces in expensive areas?
Patents

Submission + - IBM says software patents drive OSS development (zoobab.com) 2

Submitted by
zoobab
zoobab writes: "In its Amicus Brief to the US Supreme Court on the Bilski case, IBM is arguing that "patent protection has promoted the free sharing of source code [...] which has fueled the explosive growth of open source software development." IBM also argue that the machine-or-tranformation test allow software to be patented, and that "software patent protection provides significant economic, technological, and societal benefits". IBM also "finds alarming decisions in the wake of Bilski concluding that software is excluded from patentable subject matter" making references to the BPAI decisions on Ex Parte Altman. IBM also says thet are "committed to ensuring that such technology [software] is and remains patentable"."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Milkymist System-on-Chip reaches beta stage (milkymist.org)

Submitted by
lekernel
lekernel writes: "The System-on-Chip design of Milkymist, an open hardware platform for video performance artists, now has all the required features to implement many video effects. The next step for the project is to develop software that leverages the features of this architecture to render MilkDrop-like visual effects on a stand-alone FPGA development board in order to make the first good-looking demos using the system. For the FPGA hackers out there, the hardware design is entirely written in open source synthesizable Verilog. It notoriously features the LatticeMico32 WISHBONE-enabled softcore processor capable of running uClinux, a high performance DDR SDRAM controller, and graphics accelerators for texture mapping and floating point computations. A good introductory paper about the SoC architecture can be found here."
Announcements

Submission + - Paris hosts the second Hacker Space Festival (hackerspace.net)

Submitted by
zoobab
zoobab writes: "Hackers from all over Europe will meet at the end of the month (27-30 June) at the second Hacker Space Festival (HSF), in Paris. The four-day schedule includes conferences and workshops on: Metasploit, HostileWRT, FPGA for beginners, ICT disaster recovery, Software Patents in Europe, Hadopi, Anonymisation or how to produce your own biodiesel... The future of Hacker Spaces will also be debated. The event will be hosted by the first french hackerspace /tmp/lab, located in an industrial zone in the outskirts of Paris."
Patents

Submission + - Red Hat's plan for software patents in Europe (digitalmajority.org)

Submitted by
WMGarrison
WMGarrison writes: "In 2005, as the battle over software patents reached its climax, Red Hat explained their plan for software patents: extend US-style patents to Europe, make software patents stronger and harder to defeat, and create an interoperability niche that would prevent patent claims on Windows-Linux interoperation. Instead of working with the Abolitionists — FFII, FSF, and hundreds of small software firms — to end software patents in Europe, Red Hat was working to rewrite the law and remove the protection from patents that Europe's small software sector had enjoyed until then."
Patents

Submission + - European Open Source Software Strategy leaked (wikileaks.org)

Submitted by
Elektroschock
Elektroschock writes: "A working draft of the European Union Open Source Software Strategy was published by Wikileaks. According to Wikileaks meta information it was co-authored by Jonathan Zuck from the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT), a lobby hitman for Microsoft; The European Commission lets ACT and CompTIA participate in all working groups of the European Open Source Strategy which defines Europe's future open source approach. A blue editor questions the objectives: 'Regarding the "Europe Digital Independence" our [working] group thinks it is, in general, not an issue.' "European digital independence" is a phrase coined by EU-Commissioner V.Reding, that is what her European Software Strategy (ESS) was supposed to be about. She didn't reveal that lobbyists or vendors with vested interests would write the strategy for the Commission. The leaked document's language on patent licensing sounds a bit odd and controversial to me given the recent frontal patent assaults on the European automative business by Microsoft."

Comment Re:New Zealand : wonder what Weta think (Score 1) 155

by zoobab (#25139641) Attached to: Sept 24 Is World Day Against Software Patents

The Government of New Zealand is proposing a set of amendments to the national patent law, none of them clearly mentions the exclusions of software from the field of patentability. The Government claims that Free Trade Agreements and other international treaties requires software patents in New Zealand.

http://stopsoftwarepatents.org/forum/t-91796/government-in-new-zealand-pushes-for-software-patents

I would be you, I would contact immediately your Member of Parliament, and your Government to find out what is going on.
Patents

Submission + - 24-Sept is World Day against Software Patents (stopsoftwarepatents.org)

Submitted by
zoobab
zoobab writes: "Veteran European anti-software patent campaigners have launched the World Day against Software Patents, writing: "The issue of software patents is a global one, and several governments and patent offices around the world continue to grant software & business method patents on a daily basis; they are pushing for legal codification of the practice, such as currently in New Zealand and India. We declare the 24 September as the World Day Against Software Patents, in commemoration of the European Parliament First Reading in 2003 with amendments stopping the harmful patenting of software, guaranteeing that software programmers and businesses can safely benefit from the fruits of their work under copyright law.""
Republicans

Submission + - McCain advised by software patent campaigner

Submitted by
Elektroschock
Elektroschock writes: "The campaign of Presidential Candidate John McCain was recently represented by Ray L. Gifford in the field of software patent policy, the former president of the Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF), a notorious lobby group for tobacco, software patents and against open source. A few month ago lobbyists from the DCI group had to leave McCain's campaign team because they did not only lobby for software patents also but also for the Burma regime."
Patents

Submission + - 24-Sept is World Day against Software Patents

Submitted by
pieterh
pieterh writes: "Veteran European anti-software campaigners have launched World Day against Software Patents on StopSoftwarePatents.org, writing: "The issue of software patents is a global one, and several governments and patent offices around the world continue to grant software & business method patents on a daily basis; they are pushing for legal codification of the practice, such as currently in New Zealand and India, and via the misappropriation of Free Trade Agreement instruments. We declare the 24 September as the World Day Against Software Patents, in commemoration of the European Parliament First Reading in 2003 with amendments stopping the harmful patenting of software, guaranteeing that software programmers and businesses can safely benefit from the fruits of their work under copyright law.""

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