🚀 go-pugleaf

Hello!

I hope you will post this message to the appropriate mailing list
and/or news group.

My name is Haydn Huntley, and I'm a Ph.D student at Indiana University
in Bloomington, and I *used* to be a member of the LPF.  I support the
LPF's position that algorithms should not be patentable, and that is
the reason I became a member.  

The reason I decided not to renew my membership is that I was turned
off by the LPF's anti-Apple attitude.  I can understand boycotting an
organization as a protest against what they are doing, but hasn't the
threatening part of the Apple vs. Microsoft/Hewlett-Packard suit been
resolved already?  Aren't there other companies which are doing things
which are far more pernicious to the field of sofware freedom, in the
form of algorithm patents, than Apple is?  For example, in the
November LPF posting, it mentioned that an IBM executive chaired the
commission on software patents, and recommended that algorithm patents
should be allowed, and enforced *world-wide*.  Isn't that pretty bad?

When the LPF treats all companies reasonably fairly, then I will be
able to support it whole-heartedly.  Originally, I was under the
impression that the LPF was an organization which cared about
principles, but I really don't understand how continuing to sell
'Fanged Apple' buttons is the best way to explain our cause (that is,
that we are anti-algorithm patents, rather than against certain parts
of the software industry).

--Haydn