Florian Müller

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Florian Müller (born January 21, 1970 in Augsburg, Germany) is an author, entrepreneur, consultant, and the founder of the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign.

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[edit] Software industry/computer books

In 1985, Müller started writing articles for German computer magazines. A year later, at age 16, he became Germany's youngest computer book author.[citation needed]

From 1987 to 1998, he specialized on publishing and distribution cooperations between US and European software companies. He initiated and managed such alliances in various market segments, including productivity software, utility software, educational software, and computer games. As a consultant to and representative of Blizzard Entertainment, Müller was involved in the marketing campaigns for WarCraft II, Diablo I and StarCraft).[citation needed]

In 1996, he co-founded an online gaming service named Rival Network, which in early 2000 was acquired by the Telefónica group. From 2001 to 2004, Müller advised the CEO of MySQL AB, developer of the namesake open-source database management software product.[citation needed]

[edit] Campaign against EU software patents

In 2004, Müller received the support of corporate sponsors 1&1, Red Hat and MySQL for launching the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign, which opposed the European Commission's proposed directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. Following several years of intensive lobbying by many parties, this heavily amended proposed directive was rejected by the European Parliament on July 6, 2005, with 648 out of 680 votes cast.[citation needed]

For his political activities, Müller received several awards in 2005. A leading publication for intellectual property lawyers, "Managing Intellectual Property", counted Müller - such as the Chinese vice premier Wu Yi - among the "top 50 most influential people in intellectual property" (renominated in 2006). IT-focused website Silicon.com listed him among the Silicon Agenda Setters. A jury of EU-focused weekly newspaper "European Voice" elected Müller as one of the "EV50 Europeans of the Year 2005", and handed him the "EU Campaigner of the Year 2005" award. Jointly with the FFII, Müller received the "CNET Networks UK Technology Award" in the "Outstanding Contribution to Software Development" category.[citation needed]

[edit] Soccer policy

After more than 20 years in the IT industry, Florian Müller became involved with soccer (football) politics in 2007. According to articles published in Spanish by Deutsche Welle, he advised the Spanish soccer club Real Madrid with respect to a European Union policy-making initiative concerning professional sports.[citation needed]

[edit] External links

  • Florian Müller, No Lobbyists As Such (2006). 377 page play-by-play memoir of the story of Florian's part in the campaign over the EU software patent directive.
Review by Ingrid Marson, ZDnet
Review by Matthew Broersma, Techworld
  • Florian Müller's personal blog
- Article 1 and Article 2 of Deutsche Welle about soccer (football) policy (in Spanish)
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