The elections for the European Parliament are very close. The action started by Manchester Free Software has been taken up by the Free Software Foundation. See the Euro Elections 2009 wiki page for a sample letter, drafted by our very own Dave Page, with explicit references to software patents and the Stephen Fry software video.
Please propagate this far and wide—the elections are not far away, but we can at least raise awareness of free software among the new MEPs.
Subject: [FSF] Free Software Action Alert!
From: Peter Brown <peterb@fsf.org>Dear Free Software Supporter,
The upcoming European parliament elections give the free software movement an opportunity to educate the candidates to the importance of protecting free software from bad legislation involving software patents, interoperability and net neutrality. The French free software association April has organized the Free Software Pact initiative, but they need your help. In particular, candidates in the UK need to be contacted immediately.
Mark Taylor, the coordinator for the Free Software Pact in the UK, said,
The current UK Government is embarrassingly behind the rest of Europe in formulating public policy on the use of free software. Across the rest of the continent we see significant adoption and political support for free software. The Free software Pact is therefore an ideal way to draw attention to the reform the UK public sector needs and the enormous cost savings yet to be realized. For too long the UK has been dependent on the relationship with proprietary software companies like Microsoft, who are hell-bent on keeping our politicians confused on this matter. If you care about this situation, and the resulting cost to our economy, society and political culture, please contact the MEP candidates in your region and ask them to sign the Free Software Pact.Help the campaign now by visiting: http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Euro_Elections_2009 .
–
Peter T. Brown
Executive Director
Free Software Foundation
www.fsf.org www.gnu.org
