apache.org opening message--important?

[Raybdbomb]

Important notice

On September 1st the European Commission is going to vote a revised version of the European Patentability rules. The proposed revision contains a set of serious challenges to Open Source development since regulation regarding software patents will be broadly extended and might forbid independent development of innovative (Open Source and not) software-based solutions.



The European Open Source community is very concerned about the upcoming new regulation and has organized a demo protest for August 27, asking Open Source supporting sites to change their home pages to let everyone know what is going on at the European Parliament. The Apache Software Foundation has decided to support this initiative, and this is why you are seeing this page.



For further information please see http://swpat.ffii.org and http://petition.eurolinux.org. You will be redirected automatically to the Apache homepage in 60 seconds (or continue on to www.apache.org).





can someone tell me what this means

[ShroudOfStatic]

Sounds to me that it might render any changes to patented source codes illegal, unless it's by the person or group who initially created the code.



And that really sucks. You read about the TCPA bullshit?



I've got a link to the info here:

http://members.cox.net/distantmirage/index2.html (too lazy to get the link myself)...

[Aragon]

hmm... i didn't bother to read that message when I went to apache.org earlier :-p