who benefits from Software Patents

[Guest]

Could I ask why the software patents pages says:

The European commission has just passed its directive on software patents, violating democratic rules and procedures to the sole benefit of big non-European corporation and Ireland and to the detriment of small and medium sized businesses (which comprise 99% of the European software industry) and free software.

I'm Irish, and I'm wondering Ireland is mentioned here. It truly would be a bad thing to lose vlc or mplayer...

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Ireland has been the strongest proponenent of software patents in the European Union, that is why. It is said that the directive has made the most advances while Ireland had the presidency.

Besides, Ireland is the european home of many software patents strong supporters, such as Microsoft. It is hard to believe that this is a coincidence.