Compliance Toolkit

Story: Software patents make a mockery of European ideals

• 
• 

"It's said of newspapers that you only know how bad they are when you read what they say about something you know..."

Ay - and when just one or two of the smaller dogs of the fourth estate can be bothered to bark at the gang of intruders now engaged in a wholesale theft of the economic and intellectual freedoms and rights of UK citizens, one wonders what could possibly be wrong with all the other silent and apparently dozing mutts.

It is not as though the thieves have been particularly proficient at their work: the clanking sounds made by their clumsy attempts to pick the locks of the gates of the legal system roused the occupants of the FFII henhouse. The thuds of their heavy boots as they trampled over the concerns of millions of individuals, developers and SMEs were audible in the village beyond the pond.

Now they are violently kicking down the doors of democracy and justice, and still all the that can be heard from the estate's canine population is the fierce yapping of the hounds of ZDNet; a racket sadly not loud enough to raise the household from it's innocent slumber.

In the morning, when the occupants rise and are confronted with the appalling consequences of the night's events, I hope they realise the significance of the pieces of trouser material hanging from the jaws of little Ingrid and Leader but I hope they also realise that Guardian, Times, Indy, Beeb and the other great beasts either need urgent veterinary treatment, or should be shot.

• 
• 

• 
• 
• 

Full Talkback thread