www/philosophy guardian-article.html

[Richard M. Stallman]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Richard M. Stallman <rms>       13/03/23 02:39:42

Modified files:
        philosophy     : guardian-article.html 

Log message:
        Make the Gates quote into a blockquote.
        Use a meaningful title.
        Add a historical note.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/guardian-article.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.25&r2=1.26

Patches:
Index: guardian-article.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/guardian-article.html,v
retrieving revision 1.25
retrieving revision 1.26
diff -u -b -r1.25 -r1.26
--- guardian-article.html       28 Feb 2013 17:09:38 -0000      1.25
+++ guardian-article.html       23 Mar 2013 02:39:41 -0000      1.26
@@ -1,12 +1,21 @@
 <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
-<title>That's fighting talk - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation 
(FSF)</title>
+<title>Guardian Article on Software Patents - GNU Project - Free Software 
Foundation (FSF)</title>
 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/guardian-article.translist" -->
 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
-<h2>That's fighting talk</h2>
+<h2>Opposing The European Software Patent Directive</h2>
 
 <p>by <a href="http://www.stallman.org/";><strong>Richard
 Stallman</strong></a> and <strong>Nick Hill</strong></p>
 
+<blockquote>
+The European Union software patent directive, which this 2003 article
+opposed, was ultimately dropped by its own supporters after facing
+lots of opposition.  However, they later found another way to impose
+software patents on most of Europe: through fine print in
+the <a href="/philosophy/europes-unitary-patent.html"> unitary
+patent</a>.
+</blockquote>
+
 <p>
 The computer industry is threatened by a Wild West-style land grab. The
 biggest, richest companies are being assisted by governments to take
@@ -72,12 +81,18 @@
 part of the European commission investigates Microsoft for
 monopolistic practices, another part is planning to hand it an
 unending series of overlapping 20-year monopolies. Bill Gates wrote in
-his Challenges and Strategy memo of May 16 1991 that &ldquo;If people
-had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas
-were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a
-complete standstill today. The solution &hellip; is patenting as much
-as we can &hellip; A future start-up with no patents of its own will
-be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.&rdquo;
+his Challenges and Strategy memo of May 16 1991 that</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of
+today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry
+would be at a complete standstill today. The solution &hellip; is
+patenting as much as we can &hellip; A future start-up with no patents
+of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to
+impose.
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>
 Today Microsoft hopes to parlay software patents into a permanent
 monopoly on many areas of software.</p>
 
@@ -153,7 +168,7 @@
 
 <p>Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2013/02/28 17:09:38 $
+$Date: 2013/03/23 02:39:41 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>