Bio
Benjamin Henrion is the President of the FFII.org, a pan-european association that has been fighting against software patents since 1999. He has launched several popular campaigns on the internet, such as the Eurolinux petition against software patents (400.000 signatures), the August 2003 and June 2005 webdemonstrations against software patents, the PublicGeoData.org campaign for public maps, or the campaign against Microsoft's Office standardisation at ISO (OOXML) (NoOOXML.org, 100.000 signatures). He founded in 2009 the HackerSpaceBrussels (HSBXL). His interests lie in computers, politics, and mountain biking.
Quotes
"In July 2005, after several failed attempts to legalise software patents in Europe, the patent establishment changed its strategy. Instead of explicitely seeking to sanction the patentabilitty of software, they are now seeking to create a central European patent court, which would establish and enforce patentability rules in their favor, without any possibility of correction by competing courts or democratically elected legislators."
— FFII.org, Status of Software Patents in Europe
"Cycling is trapped in consumerism. […] I’ve seen how people (myself included) have been trapped in the crescendo of consumption, competition, and exposition. […] In the quest to reclaim the core sense of cycling, cyclists ought to disobey"
— Disobey cycling - Bike resistance in the age of consumerism and self-exposure
"Le domaine du vélo est un domaine ultra compétitif qui cherche constamment à se renouveler et qui rend cette industrie malade à trop pousser notre consommation"
— Hugo Bardou, Xprezo dans Velovert: Xprezo a cessé son activité
"Toutes ces multinationales, ces produits, ces hommes d’affaires qui veulent être les meilleurs. Le résultat, c'est que la banquise fond et on se chope des virus. Donc ça serait bien d’arrêter d’être le meilleur et d’être juste soi-même, d’écouter un petit peu autrui et je pense que la planète peut se calmer. Mais bon, je ne suis pas sûr d’être entendu parmi les meilleurs !"
— "L’intelligence se fout de la compétition" : pourquoi Albert Dupontel n'était pas aux César Son film "Adieu les cons" a décroché sept César