"MEPs, representatives of the European Commission and Council have discussed yesterday in plenary session, in Brussels, the reform of European law on electronic communications [...] The EDPS, as an independent EU authority in charge of personal data protection, considers that these amendments are an open invitation to a 'mass surveillance of Internet users' and to "lay the foundations" of the grad

Everybody's talking about Microsoft - the hot topics are interoperability, exclusion, standards, and the doubts of a Red Had and the European Union about their alleged about-turn.

"The European Parliament adopted a resolution this morning which commits the member states - therefore France - «to avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of Internet access.» This vote proves that the system of graduated response that Nicolas Sarkozy wants Fr

Full response explaining the harms of software patents

Well, this is one of the Aaron-style “explain to the unbelievers why they are wrong”. This is in response to http://blog.kov.eti.br/?p=19 (or you can see the translated version)

The signatories of this petition, representing a Community for Freedom of Choice and Market in the European Union, draw the attention of the Members of the European Parliament to the current situation where the institution’s ICT systems are locked into the products of one vendor, warns about the implications of this for participative democracy and for fair competition, and calls for action to promote Open Standards and Interoperability.

In response to another merge request, Andrew Morton retorted, "argh. I have a backlog of maybe 300 patches here which I am cheerfully ignoring while concentrating on preventing 2.6.23 from being less of a disaster than it has already been."

One of the most surprising recent developments in the field of openness has been the rise of Europe as a key player there. This is not the result of some grand plan, despite what the conspiracy theorists in proprietary software companies might think, but simply a natural evolution of the European Union itself, and a consequence of its attempts to become more tightly integrated.

I've written before how worthwhile it is contacting your MEPs about open source and related matters. Well, here's another opportunity. Some enlightened MEPs have crafted “Written Declaration 0046/2008” urging the European Union to step up its support of free software.