A really bad day for OSS

[Parcival]

The news just flocked in that the city of Munich puts its Linux project on hold because of software patents endangering Linux. They say that the entire municipal adminsitration would be blocked if they kept going with the Linux project and even one patent succeeds. Instead they wanna analyze the legal and financial risks first.

Most of the blame gets the German government, because the ministry of home affairs on the one hand advices adminsitrations throughout the country to make the move to Linux while the ministry of justice on the other hand supports software patents in the EU parliament.

[mrBen]

Can you post links to where this news is? I can't find it on any of the big news sites.

[Parcival]

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/49735

[Parcival]

News have arrived that the whole Linux issue already moved from Munich to Berlin, so now the fire's up there, too - looks like some politicians finally wake up. However, their level of information is so low that some worry now the servers of the federal government could be shut down.

SPD members of the parliament are trying to make everything look like a tempest in a teapot. However, Munich's warning signal could make the federal government think its position over on patents in the European parliament. I still wonder how a socialdemocratic party can actually stand for software-patents at all - this is so much against everything social democracy stands for. I think it's time for Brigitte Zypries to either change her position or leave office.

[sharth]

Originally posted by mrBen
Can you post links to where this news is? I can't find it on any of the big news sites. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&ie=UTF-8&newsclusterurl=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/04/munich_linux_patent_fears/