[Sheflug] Software Patents

[Bob Holland <bobholland [at] xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all..

Just thought I'd let you know that following the RMS meeting in Sheffield I 
have received a letter from Lord Sainsbury's office via my MP.

I am frankly _extremely_ upset that the response was simply a personalised 
form letter. This addressed none of the issues relating to the situation of 
small ICT businesses in South Yorkshire which had been raised in my letter.

It has clearly been drafted to attempt to placate the (no doubt) numerous 
correspondents from various free software groups who may be making life 
difficult at present. I specifically made no mention of open source or free 
software in my own letter as I believe it is largely irrelevant to the 
software patent issue being faced by software developers such as myself.

Whilst I appreciate that government ministers will have little time to reply 
to individual members of the public, it would be much better if they would 
be big enough to say so. Instead they have deliberately attempted to convey 
the _impression_ that their reply represents a considered response to my 
letter by using phrases such as '...I agree with your constituent...' for 
example. A simple response thanking me for my letter and directing me to 
relevant sources of information and/or appropriate forums considering these 
issues on behalf of government would have been much more helpful. This might 
also have left me with the impression that government is at least concerned 
about views from industry.

I intend to follow this up via my MP. I had been led to believe that by 
raising the question via my local MP, he (and therefore I) would receive an 
answer to the particular issues raised. This has clearly not happened here.

No doubt many of you who wrote will have received the same reply - I know 
Richard did as I have seen his letter. It would be interesting to know what 
the MPs themselves think about being given a 'form letter' as a reply to 
their questions.

Bob Holland

PS - someone should also tell our government that '...your 
constituents concerns...' requires an apostrophe.
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