Update: Feb 16, 2005 - the well-deserved thanks to Poland have been delivered today. Details of the "Thank Poland" ceremony in Sejm (Polish Parliament) are available in the press release. The paper document which was delivered today contains 30518 unique, valid signatures which have been submitted at this site and afterwards confirmed in response to an emailed request for confirmation.
General Update: On July 6, 2005 the EU parliament voted with a huge majority to kill the software patents directive, and the EU commission promised to accept this verdict. What happened before that has however raised serious concerns about EU political processes.
The struggle against software patents isn't won yet, but without Poland's action it could easily have become a lost cause on December 21, 2004.
This thankpoland.info website will remain online indefinitely, as a permanent online memorial for Poland's heroic action.
Poland has taken significant action to save the EU from a major public policy debacle.
Why it is madness to treat ideas as if they were things
FFII has
a video from 21 December
(MPEG2 format, 370MB.)
The undersigned wish to express their sincere thanks to the Polish government for their action to remove the "A-item" of adopting the "Software Patent Directive" from the agenda of the Agricultural Council meeting on December 21, 2004. It would have been a horrible mistake for the European Union to adopt this "Software Patent Directive". (The list of signatures is not published on the internet, in order to prevent abuse.)
<a href="http://thankpoland.info/">
<img src="http://thankpoland.info/poland_banner90.png"
border="0" alt="Thank you, Poland!">
</a>
More banners are here
Text links are very effective where appropriate, for example you can include the following in a blog posting:
<a href="http://thankpoland.info/">Thanks to Poland's action of
December 21, 2004</a>, ...