I lifted the following paragraph from the Apache site:
On September 1st the European Commission is going to vote a revised version of the European Patentability rules. The proposed revision contains a set of serious challenges to Open Source development since regulation regarding software patents will be broadly extended and might forbid independent development of innovative (Open Source and not) software-based solutions.
It's vital for all of us in the software industry to support these petitions, whether you're in the EU or not - this sort of lunacy cannot be allowed to continue unchecked.
Please register your support with http://swpat.ffii.org/ and http://petition.eurolinux.org/.