2005-10-20 Mail to FFII Supporters announcing GA and calling to support Florian's campaign
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We need to write to our supporters once more, informing of the General Assembly of Nov 29th in Brussels, of our support for Florian's campaign to be elected "European of the Year", and of the problems we are currently facing.
Board decision to support Florian's campaign
This has been proposed by phm and ehj and endorsed by gibus, lac and jmaebe so far. This means we already have a majority.
Message from the Board at the end of Florian's mail
The following has been proposed:
- The FFII's Annual General Assembly will be held in Brussels on 29 November 2005, that is on the day of announcement of the result of the "European of the Year" vote. The assembly will be in the afternoon. Surrounding events will begin at 12.00 and end at 22.00. We will soon contact you again with more specifics. For now, please make a note in your calendar if you plan to attend.
One could add that the board has unanimously decided to endorse Florian's campaign to be elected as European of the Year.
Another variant would be a PS by Florian himself:
- P.S.: After an unusually long period of silence (in terms of emails like this), you are soon going to receive an email from the Board of the FFII. The FFII will announce this year's General Assembly, which is going to take place in Brussels on 29 November. If you plan to attend, please make a note in your calendar!
Prelimary Agenda for 2005-11-29
??
- 28 mon
- 29 tue
- ?? EV50 ceremony ??
- ?? GA ??
- ?? Champaign for Creativity ??
- 30 wed
EV50 voting recommendations
Texts (and banners) are online in many languages and waiting to be placed on more FFII sites.
We still have more than three weeks to go until the end of the poll.
Florian's letter draft
SUBJECT: Please vote against software patents in 'EV50 Europeans of the Year' poll
[[It could be trimmed down to just "EV50 Europeans of the Year poll" if it's sent from the usual FFII sender address, but if it's mine, then the first part helps make the swpat context 100% clear.]]
Dear Supporters of the FFII,
The FFII has kindly enabled me to contact you with this campaign message on my own behalf. That is just the latest in a long line of ways in which the FFII has supported my efforts.
Please consider voting for me (and other candidates who I recommend) in the public Internet poll for the "EV50 Europeans of the Year" awards, the most prestigious series of awards in EU politics. It would send a strong message to politicians, the press and the public if a vocal opponent of software patents were elected as the new "European of the Year". We can simultaneously ensure that a couple of our political allies, especially Michel Rocard MEP, also receive awards, while the proponents of unlimited software patentability (such as commissioner McCreevy) should come away empty-handed.
The poll is open to the worldwide public (including non-Europeans), and the idea is explained on this page: http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/index.html Specific voting recommendations are available on this page: http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/vote.html Those pages are available in more than a dozen languages. You will also find an email form on that site, which makes it quick and easy to inform others of this campaign, and banners for your website.
Should I win, the FFII will receive the prize money, and will be credited in my acceptance speech and a subsequent press release. Credit where credit is due.
In addition to the general information that you find on the website, let me also say a few things about the unique relationship between the FFII and myself.
By participating in an FFII conference in April of last year, I became more aware of the political controversy over software patents. By subsequently participating in various FFII activities, I realized that citizens like us can indeed influence a political debate. With the financial support of three corporate sponsors (1&1, Red Hat, MySQL), I then founded the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign as a complement to the FFII's own website and lobbying. From the conceptual stage on, I cooperated closely with the FFII. Without the FFII, I would not have become involved, let alone been impactful or successful, in the fight against an ill-conceived piece of patent legislation.
About six months ago, I handed the NoSoftwarePatents.com site to the FFII, and if you look at the voting form for the EV50 awards, then you will notice that the NoSoftwarePatents.com name is right next to my name. I'm running on the NoSoftwarePatents ticket, and in the name of a website that will, hopefully, be a cornerstone of future FFII campaigns in the software patent context.
The FFII and I jointly received this year's CNET Networks UK Technology Award in the Outstanding Contribution to Software Development category. It would only have been fair if we had always been jointly nominated for such awards and honors, but even where that is not formally the case, it's still the way I view it in practice.
For your convenience, here is another link to the voting recommendations: http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/vote.html
Thank you for considering to lend me your support, and once again, thanks to the FFII for everything!
Best regards,
Florian Mueller florian.mueller@nosoftwarepatents.com
Reusable textbits
There are bits of texts here that could be reused:
I was wrong about the handover date: 30 March 2005
Links
- free and open-source software luminaries call on worldwide community to vote against software patents in the "european of the year 2005" internet poll
