The following is forwarded (with permission) from Harry Powell which
was sent to British Crystallographic Association CCG members:
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Hello
First of all, I'd like to apologize for the non-CCG specific nature of
this e-mail; it concerns the proposed legislation by the European
Parliament which would legalize the patenting of software within the EU
(this is a quite different process to that of copyrighting software).
This is an issue which will probably affect all of us in crystallography
in the future, so, at the very least, we should be aware of the issues
involved. Those of you who subscribe to the bionet.xtallography
newsgroup may have read the discussions which took place there earlier
this week. Discussion of the issues involved may be found at:
http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/maths/software-patents/
which has been compiled by Lachlan Cranswick, and
http://objcryst.sourceforge.net
compiled by Vincent Favre-Nicolin, both of whom are members of the IUCr's
Commission on Crystallographic Computing.
I have raised this issue now because the European Parliament is due to
debate and vote on it next week (22nd - 25th September). If you have a
strong view on the proposal (one way or the other), then it is a good time
to write to your MEP; names for UK members are available from
http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/meps.htm - the address is
European Parliament
Bat. Altiero Spinelli
10G217
60, rue Wiertz / Wiertzstraat 60
B-1047 Bruxelles/Brussel
An example letter from the Chairman of CCP4's Working Group 1 is available
as an example at
http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/harry/spec_ccp4_let.pdf
Harry
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Dr Harry Powell, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology,
MRC Centre, Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 2QH
See http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/harry for Mosflm, BCA and
crystal growing details
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Lachlan M. D. Cranswick
Neutron Program for Materials Research (NPMR),
National Research Council (NRC),
Postal Address:
NPMR, NRC,
Building 459, Station 18,
Chalk River Laboratories,
Chalk River, Ontario,
Canada, K0J 1J0 Fax: (613) 584-4040
Tel (work): (613) 584-8811 Office: ext 3719 ; C2 diff: ext 3039
Email: lachlan.cranswick at nrc.gc.ca WWW: http://neutron.nrc.ca/
Tel (home): (613) 584-4226 WWW: http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/
Home Email: lachlan at melbpc.org.au Mobile/Cell phone: 613 401 3433
P.O. Box 2057, Deep River, Ontario, Canada, K0J 1P0
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