Hartmut Pilch
From Free net encyclopedia
Hartmut Pilch (born July 7 1963 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) founded the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure or FFII, and is a simultaneous conference interpreter, translator and software developer, who lives in Munich, Germany. He is a former employee of SuSE and former president of the FFII.
In 2000, he led a campaign which supposedly contributes to prevent the removal of the exclusion of computer programs as such from patenting in Art. 52(2) of the European Patent Convention. In 2003, he led again a campaign against the patentability of software in Europe. Along with a lot of supporters (60,000?), he lobbied and convinced the members of the European Parliament to amend a directive proposal on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions (initially written by the European Commission). He is also strongly opposed to the current practice of the European Patent Organisation regarding software patents.
He also founded the Eurolinux Alliance.
In November 2005, at the General Assembly of the FFII eV, Hartmut Pilch stepped aside as president of the FFII and nominated Pieter Hintjens, CEO of iMatix as new FFII president. He continues as vice-president of FFII.
Debate within the FFII [1] had become somewhat personal [2] and these changes probably signify that the FFII has "grown up" as an organisation.