Evil comes from the EU in the form of software patents

Do you use any software bearing the open-source label? Are you glad there are alternatives to products such as Windows, IIS, Photoshop and Oracle?
If the European Parliament passes the law on so-called software patents on 24 September 2003,
 it could spell the end of open source as we know it and mean serious trouble
 for smaller software companies.

Take some concrete examples. Apache, Linux, PHP, MySQL 
 and many other open-source projects could disappear as a result. A software patent differs from an ordinary patent in that it covers something intangible, which has until now been handled under copyright law.

If this law passed, things like a tab bar, such as the one you see in Mozilla, could be patented. I’m quite serious. Software patents are allowed in the United States, and Adobe holds this particular patent. Other features are patented too, such as pop-up help in a bubble and the progress bar, or thermometer.

Open-source projects wouldn’t be able to afford these absurd patents
 or even afford to register patents of their own. They’d gradually disappear.
 The loss of open source would affect the whole software industry, since open-source projects create
 competition for closed software. For more on the issue,
 see the press release on root.cz, 
 Software patents in the EU. 
 This is hardly a fuss over nothing. If we think through the consequences, software patents are a real threat.