First idea for a SWPat warning for debian.org
This is the translation of a german text that can be found often on web pages. Please edit it to make it better or write a new one that can be placed on www.debian.org ;-)
<H2>Software patents a problem for OpenSource</H2> <p>The new elected Eurepean parliament has to decide about the legalisation of software patents for the EU, soon. These patents are used (in other countries) from big companies for elimination of competition. The legalisation of software patents will lead to the end of the development of a lot of software projects (in particular OpenSource projects like Debian). There are about 30.000 accorded European software patents (there is no legal basis at the moment), that will give their owners monopol- and licenseclaims through very trivial things like "mouse clicks in online order forms", "scrolling in windows" etc.. Software developers have to pay license fees for their own by one's own hand written code, that may violate patents. This will make it impossible for little and medium sized companies to develop new and innovative software. And of course it costs a lot of time and money to check the patents to see if there are patent violations in your self written code. This checking can be done by big companies only. </p>
<p> Learn more about the problem of software patents and how you can help stopping them: <a href="http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html">http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html</a> </p>
