On June 7, 2009, Swedish voters elected a member of the PiratPariet (Pirate Party) to the European Parliament. A second parliamentary seat will go to the Pirate Party this fall if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified and Sweden gains an additional two seats.

In a welcome gesture on October 16, Dr. Richard Stallman made a public note supporting the Swedish Pirate Party’s position regarding trademarks, patent monopolies, and copyright monopolies.

"Since the revelation that the judge in the case against The Pirate Bay has socialized with the lawyers of the copyright lobby and is a member of the Association for Copyright, the Pirate Party is outright furious..."

RMS: Thus, the Pirate Party's proposal would give proprietary software developers the use of GPL-covered source code after 5 years, but it would not give free software developers the use of proprietary source code, not after 5 years or even 50 years. The Free World would get the bad, but not the good.

"We wish to change global legislation to facilitate the emerging information society, which is characterised by diversity and openness. We do this by requiring an increased level of respect for the citizens and their right to privacy, as well as reforms to copyright and patent law.

"...Sarnez, a member of the European Parliament since 1999, is currently campaigning to be re-elected to the European Parliament. She has recently pledged her support for free software, after being approached by the Free Software advocacy associations April in France and the Associazione per il software libero in Italy.

At the first state party congress of the Berlin branch of the Pirate Party, the newly minted politicians fighting for Internet freedom are greeted by an onslaught of new members.

Stallman published a post on the GNU website entitled “How the Swedish Pirate Party Platform Backfires on Free Software“. And, oh boy, I just have to comment.

The final talk on Saturday at Akademy 2007 was from Patrick Harvie, a Member of the Scottish Parliament for the Green Party. While not a technical wizard like most of the other talks of the day, Patrick was able to describe to us the attitudes to free software from the Government he is elected to keep an eye on, and how the work of KDE developers applies to more than just software.