This whole this controversy is about patented processes getting standardized recognition in the EU. A lot of people don't like that, me included. I'd much rather see only open standards being approved.

That said the EU have at least stepped in and insisted that if you want your patented process to be accepted you must agree to not abuse your ownership of the patent afterwards. For example Motorola wanted to have all Apple products using some 3g patent banned EU wide. This was a retaliatory act by Motorola against Apple alone. The courts stepped in a said that since Motorola's technology was standardized and subject to FRAND the they couldn't suddenly discriminate against Apple using it (see here for eg).

This still bothers the Free software people, who don't want to have to buy a license at all, be it at a fair price or not. Again I'm inclined to agree with them. Importantly though, nowhere is free software being outlawed.

As for rebuttals and name calling. Well it's difficult to rebut a lie, in any place of sane conversation it would be upon the lier to defend their remarks. In this case, nowhere in any of the links provided by Iain is there anything about outlawing free software. If someone cares to actually elaborate on the remarks and explain the outlawing then awesome, in the mean time everything that has been linked suggests that no outlawing is taking place and so the remark to that effect is a lie.

As for name calling, remarks such as

Meanwhile the EU populations lie down and passively allow this non-democracy (or reversal of democracy) to roll right over them.

Maybe they will soon have the appointment of an Emperor...it's what they probably deserve.

-IainB (February 28, 2012, 07:29 AM)

Is blatant anti-EU racism, something which is becoming depressingly more common on DC.

So instead of trying to do the impossible and rigorously define “Reasonable And Non Discriminatory” (RAND) for every possible corner case they are instead leaving it to judges to make the decisions on a case by case basis?