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Public announcement of the creation of ANSOL,
http://www.ansol.org/docs/lancamento.en.html (text version below)
Minutes of the second meeting of the founding members of ANSOL
http://www.ansol.org/docs/acta2.en.html
Public announcement of the creation of ANSOL
Jaime E. Villate
The creation of the "[1]National Association for Free Software" (in
Portuguese: "Associação Nacional para o Software Livre"), ANSOL, was
made on Friday October 12th, at 2001's edition of [2]Oporto,
Technological City, in the northern Portuguese city of Oporto. The
announcement was made by a group of free software advocates who have
been working during the last months towards the participation of
Portugal in the recently created [3]Free Software Foundation Europe.
The association will be a non-profit organization committed to the
promotion, development, research and study of Computing Freedom and
its socio-political, cultural and technological implications. A [4]Web
site for the association has been created, and a first draft of its
[5]bylaws has been written. The initiative has awakened the interest
of free software enthusiasts in Portugal, who are discussing in the
[6]association's mailing list the schedule for the first General
Assembly at which the governing boards will be elected.
[7]Oporto, Technological City is a Free Software event opened to the
public, sponsored and organized by Oporto's City Hall and the School
of Engineering of the University of Oporto. It was started last year
by Raul Oliveira, Jaime Villate and Nuno Faria, who are also among the
group involved in the creation of ANSOL. This year the event consisted
of an exhibition by Institutions and Companies that develop and work
with Free Software, a GNU/Linux Installation Party and a series of
lectures (more photos available at [8]this site); among the special
guests invited to deliver lectures were Bradley Kuhn, vice-president
of the Free Software Foundation, Loïc Dachary, vice-president of the
Free Software Foundation Europe, and Alberto Martins, the Portuguese
Minister of State Reform and Public Administration. The event was also
attended, among many other local public figures, by the Mayor of
Oporto, Nuno Cardoso (whose office undertook the organization of the
event) and the Portuguese Minister of Science and Technology, Mariano
Gago, who gave a press conference at the event.
The event was also a good opportunity for the founding members of the
association to meet and exchange ideas with the vice-presidents of the
Free Software Foundation and the Free Software Foundation Europe.
URLs
1. http://www.ansol.org/ansol.en.html
2. http://www.cidadetecnologica.org/
3. http://www.fsfeurope.org/
4. http://www.ansol.org/ansol.en.html
5. http://www.ansol.org/docs/estatutos.en.html
6. http://listas.ansol.org/mailman/listinfo/ansol-geral
7. http://www.cidadetecnologica.org/
8. http://reinolinux.fe.up.pt/fpct/
Photographs:
http://www.ansol.org/fotos/pct2001-miguelg.jpg
ANSOL's member, Miguel Gonçalves, being interviewed for Portuguese
National Television.
http://www.ansol.org/fotos/pct2001-Loic.jpg
The vice-president of FSF-Europe, Loïc Dachary, speaks about Free
Software organizations throughout the world, at "Oporto,
Technological City".
http://www.ansol.org/fotos/pct2001-MGago.jpg
The Portuguese Minister of Science and Technology and the Mayor of
Oporto (center) visit the event with some officers from the School
of Engineering of the Univ. of Oporto, escorted by organizers Jaime
Villate and Raul Oliveira (left).
http://www.ansol.org/fotos/pct2001-fsf.jpg
The vice-president of the FSF, Bradley Kuhn, and some members of
ANSOL at the FSF booth.
- --
Petition contre les brevets logiciels http://petition.eurolinux.org/
Frederic Couchet Tel: 06 60 68 89 31 / 01 49 22 67 89
APRIL http://www.april.org/
Free Software Foundation Europe http://www.fsfeurope.org/
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Hello everyone,
the Systems 2001 last week was a full success for the FSF
Europe. Besides the presentations by Bernhard Reiter (he held his
presentation "How companies can benefit from Free Software
philosophy" twice) and myself ("Copyright in the internet age") we
were present in interview (it-tv.de) and podium discussion.
In addition we showed presence with our booth and made ourselves
available for discussions and questions. Thanks for this goes to our
booth volunteers Klaus Kappel and Bjoern Bendix.
The person making the successful booth possible was Volker Dormeyer,
however. He not only organized & coordinated the booth, he also set it
up and disassembled it, took care the materials were there and made
their way back and was present at the booth every single day during
the Systems. Thanks, Volker!
Those who did not have time to go to the Sytems can get some
impressions on the home page of the FSF Europe:
http://fsfeurope.org/events/Systems-2001/index.en.html
Regards,
Georg
--
Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)gnu.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org)
Brave GNU World (http://brave-gnu-world.org)
Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw(a)users.sourceforge.net> writes:
> How could contracts and NDAs bring us DMCAs,
> protocol/fileformat/look&feel patents or CD tax ? You need two
> sides for a contract, copyrights and patents can affect you even if
> you didn't sign anything.
The above weren't brought about by copyright law (and please let's not
argue about algorithm patents, where I basically agree with you).
They were brought about by stupid legislative mistakes.
If the DMCA hadn't been based on copyright law, it would have been
based on something else, because there would still have been the
bank roll for it. The CD-R taxes would have been argued for on the
grounds that the media assisted contract breaches by the copier, the
same as it is currently justified as assisting the licensee to break
copyright law.
> > Copyright isn't going anywhere soon, but if/when it does, we'll only
> > be confronted by the same problem in a different form.
> Well, communism also wasn't 20 years ago.
> At least everyone thought it wasn't.
I believe sovietism (not really communism by that point) was fatally
wounded long before 1981. If you don't, perhaps we're just reading
different books. It's not important for this discussion.
> Manmade structures don't last long.
> Copyright will go away sooner or later.
Like I said: then we will just have to work out how to implement our
solution in a different framework. The essential pressures need to be
balanced in a fairer way. Someone needs to keep the market free, as
some people will always want to close it down. I don't think a
revolution is going to be the best way at arriving at a fair solution.
(I studied GAs during my degree, so as you would expect, I'm a great
believer in evolutionary solutions...)
--
MJR
Do you need advice about the Internet or particular net services? Why
not talk to my employers? See http://www.luminas.co.uk/ for details.
Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw(a)users.sourceforge.net> writes:
> "Piracy" has nothing to do with stealing.
No, it is just copyright infringement.
> Copyright is just evil law that nobody should obey.
If no-one obeys copyright, we have no free software.
--
MJR
Do you need advice about the Internet or particular net services? Why
not talk to my employers? See http://www.luminas.co.uk/ for details.
Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw(a)users.sourceforge.net> writes:
> Without copyright law there would be no proprietary software companies
> (why would they exist ?), so there would be no problem.
This is very naive. If there was no copyright law, contract law would
merely take its place. Indeed, in many things where it is felt that
copyright is insufficient to protect the knowledge (usually where that
knowledge takes the form of general principles rather than specific
works based upon them), contract law is already used for this purpose,
in the form of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and similar.
I think the recent question on NDAs was to this list. FS supporters
should definitely be at least concerned by them.
Copyright isn't going anywhere soon, but if/when it does, we'll only
be confronted by the same problem in a different form.
--
MJR
Do you need advice about the Internet or particular net services? Why
not talk to my employers? See http://www.luminas.co.uk/ for details.
Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw(a)users.sourceforge.net> writes:
> And copyright is evil law that should be abolished..
Copyright is the basis of so many non-physical transactions, how do we
have anything other than production industries without it? If you
have a Grand Plan, then fine, but you can't just keep saying that
without justifying it.
> > If no-one obeys copyright, we have no free software.
> If no-one obeys copyright, all software is free.
I think you have a different definition of freedom. If no-one obeys
copyright, all software is in a free-for-all.
--
MJR
Do you need advice about the Internet or particular net services? Why
not talk to my employers? See http://www.luminas.co.uk/ for details.
Frank Koormann <frank.koormann(a)intevation.de> writes:
> However, the proposed options for future business models were quite
> different. Where on the one hand proprietary models based on GNU/Linux
> were prefered, the other strong hand favorited service based models with
> free software. [...]
Is it possible to have more descriptions of some of the models
discussed, please? Personally, I find it fascinating to see what the
current thinking in this area is.
Are there equivalent models possible for freely redistributable
content providers possible? (See LWN.net current and previous. There
is another list elsewhere to discuss that particular case, though.)
--
MJR
Do you need advice about the Internet or particular net services? Why
not talk to my employers? See http://www.luminas.co.uk/ for details.
Dear all,
another report from the Systems 2001 fair in Munich:
Yesterday afternoon there was a panel discussion entitled
"10 years Linux - What next?" The discussion was moderated by
Jan Kleinert (editor, Linux Magazin). Participants:
Hans Baier (Caldera Germany), Robin Tawa (IT Consultant, former Apptime),
Udo Hertz (IBM EMEA), Georg Greve (president FSF Europe),
Sebastian Hetze (Linux Information Systems AG) and Daniel Riek (Alcove GmbH).
After an initial round considering the history of the Linux kernel
the discussion focussed on the position of Free Software in the current
IT world, the chances of business models based on Free Software and the
future. Most notably the term Free Software dominated the discussion
instead of Linux and Open Source (thanks to Georg).
It was common sense that the bankrupts of GNU/Linux related companies we all
saw during the last year does not proof a failure of Free Software,
but is more related to the new economy hype and the cooling of the IT
market in general.
However, the proposed options for future business models were quite
different. Where on the one hand proprietary models based on GNU/Linux
were prefered, the other strong hand favorited service based models with
free software. Udo Hertz stated, that IBM's customers demand the freedoms
to run the software for any purpose, to study and to redistribute the
programs, to improve them and to choose service partners for the software
they use.
Free Software is ready for the future. Daniel Riek and Sebastian Hetze
pointed out, that whether business models will succeed or not, Free Software
will still be there - and will even grow. As an example the current
development of free office software was mentioned.
At the close Georg Greve stressed to achieve the success of Free Software
the users have to be informed what Free Software stands for, to take them
out of their lethargy to be content with the restrictions their tools to
work with currently have, to demand their freedoms.
The auditorium of about 80 people got a profound argumentation
for free software.
Kind regards,
Frank Koormann
--
Frank Koormann <frank.koormann(a)intevation.de>
Professional Service around Free Software (http://intevation.net/)
FreeGIS Project (http://freegis.org/)
Philipp Gühring <p.guehring(a)futureware.at> writes:
> IŽm not quite sure what it would help us to show the BSA that they are
> misbehaving. The BSA is a group of Marketing freaks, who have to job to do
> publicity against software piracy.
They seem to be doing a reasonable job, as you are talking of software
"piracy" with all the connotations of evil on the high seas, instead
of a more accurate but less emotive term "copyright violation". I
think it would also be easier for the non-specialist to understand if
software publishers used the same terms as other publishers.
Of course we are in favour of copyright enforcement, but all this talk
of "piracy" is just silly. I guess it fits in with the "daylight
robbery" of most end-user licences, though. As long as the BSA
continues to promote proprietary software and talks in such inaccurate
and emotive language, there will never be much common ground between
them and the Free Software movements.
--
MJR
Do you need advice about the Internet or particular net services? Why
not talk to my employers? See http://www.luminas.co.uk/ for details.
Hi all, [Sorry, my english is very bad, it's not my mother tongue].
I'm a french system administrator et i've got an idea while i was reading a
french state report made by Thierry Carcenac and two jobs in two french
administrations to study the information system to see where Free Software
can to be intégrate in it (am i clear enough ? :)).
It gave me an idea that can be read on http://libre.grenouille.com. Sorry for
now it's only in french, maybe if someone find the idea interesting it can be
translate in other languages.
Anyway, i like to have any comment/help on it from french people that find
the idea interesting.
See you.
