Excuse we while I catch up ;) @andrewreitemeyer your objection here seems to feed into the discussion on our membership of PPI. Am I correct in thinking that you believe an international Pirates network should focus on stewarship of shared services, and facilitating cooperation between parties, and not be doing policy work?

Yes also these policies originate from a fraction the board itself and not the general assembly. PPI looks to be functioning like a politburo where the policy decisions are made by the board and rubber stamped by the GA. Far removed from the grass roots basis of the movement.

The process you describe does seem less democratic than ours. That said, I have no objection to importing good policies from other parties, Pirate or otherwise.

Policy-wise I would actually go much further than PPDE. I don't think it's ok to patent chemistry (as drug patents do), any more than it's ok to patent mathematics (as software patents do). Patents should only cover new methods for making a drug, not grant a monopoly on the molecular structure of the active ingredients.

BTW This seems to be a policy discussion, so I'm moving it to the Policy Group.