Discussion January 2002

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

44 participants
47 discussions

CD-R royalties
by Eneko Lacunza 16 Jan '02

16 Jan '02

Dear free software lovers, Today in Spain we have been suprised by some bad news in the media. It has been revealed that Traxdata Spain has been forced to pay royalties for each data CD-R manufactured since 1997 to Author's Society known as SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores de España). The royalty free is about 0,18 euros per burnable hour, so each CD-R will cost between 0,22 and 0,24 euros more (in fact it will be between 1/2 and 1/4 of the media price). Computer users are very angry about this, and so is the free software community. We see that SGAE is making money without any right to it when we burn CDs with free software, backups, etc. For example, my Citius Debian copy, which consists of 10 CDs, will cost to copy 2,2 euros more, which is quite a difference if we think that it has no other expense. We also think that this court decission harms rights granted by Spanish Constitution, and are planning action against those royalties. I'd like to know how are things along Europe, so that we have some more background on the subject. I've been told that in France a similar royalty was set to CD-Rs. I'd appreciate any further information you could have. Thanks a lot, -- Eneko Lacunza # Por un mundo con conocimiento libre # Apoya el Software Libre - No a las patentes http://www.hispalinux.es - http://www.es.gnome.org http://www.fsfeurope.org - http://www.es.gnu.org

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Pooling
by Loic Dachary 16 Jan '02

16 Jan '02

Hi, I think it is important that people from the Free Software community answer / comment this questionaire. I'll answer shortly and cc: to this list. The first remark is that I will comment from a Free Software point of view and it will be significantly different from an Open Source point of view. Cheers, --- Dear Public Sector representative, The European Union recently published the "Study into the use of Open source Software in Public Sector" (link in the "Highlight" column of the IDA portal http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/ ) The next step is now the feasibility study of a Pooling Open Source service allowing administrations to share and exchange their software. Please CONTRIBUTE TO THE DEBATE ! It may be a milestone for public OPEN SOURCE! Read the summary hereafter, respond to questions and /or send us your own ideas. All opinions (technical, legal, economical) will be considered. Attachments and response may also be given in an other language than English or French (we will try to translate). Contributors will be mentionned inside the Study. Please feel FREE TO DISTRIBUTE the present mail to colleagues / competent members of your administration. Answer as soon as possible to: Patrice-Emmanuel SCHMITZ - patrice-emmanuel.schmitz(a)be.unisys.com Sebastien CASTIAUX - sebastien.castiaux(a)be.unisys.com Unisys Strategic Studies Practice ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- POOLING OPEN SOURCE Summary: An important quantity of software applications has been developed by and for the administrations. Some of these applications have been specially developed and has advanced technical or functional characteristic in specific domains such as internal management, electronic exchanges with citizens, enterprises or other services. Right now these applications are "best practices" in their domain. However, facing similar needs, our administrations (the European Community or in Member States, at national, regional or local level) are developing "from scratch" applications already made elsewhere. Re-use and sharing existing solutions could lead to better use of public funds. The "Pooling Open Source" study objective is to analyze the conditions of re-use of sharing. Framework: The "Pooling Open Source" study is an initiative of European Union - DG Entreprise - Program IDA (Interchange of Data between Administrations). A symposium (held in February 2001) and a study related to use of Open Source in public sector (<http://www.europa.eu.int/ispo/ida>) brought needs to the fore. The "Pooling Open Source" study has to go further and prepare service set up. Scope and Questions: The sharing objective is not necessarily to spend less but to spend better: - Speed up innovation by using funds to develop new applications and not to re-invent the wheel. - Allow countries to beneficiate of the advance of other countries: comparative studies showed "leading administrations" having made significant advances in one or several specific domains. - Promote collaboration between European administrations. Putting in place this sharing assumes the analysis of some questions. - What is the interest for this service and political willingness to share what was developed inside administrations? - What could be the legal framework of sharing? o Rights: check if the administration owns copyright on its software (either they were developed by its services or by contract with service providers) o License: under which license could that software be distributed. Even if needs are almost similar, cultural, language and national regulations differences lead inevitably to adaptations. That's why the license should be free or "Open-Source" allowing to modify code and re-distribute software, from which the study name "Pooling Open Source" o Responsibility issues - What is the economic impact? o Risk of competing with companies? o On the opposite, opportunity to concentrate investment on innovation (more innovative markets proposed to companies, internal developments) o Who should beneficiate of this sharing? Only administrations? Companies? Public? o What can be the role of companies (development partners/support partners)? - What should be the service? o How to inform users about existing software considering various languages and cultures? o How to guide users though existing solutions (Solutions developed by Member state, regions, governmental agencies, local sections)? o Guided search engines. o How to organize support for available software? o Running of the portal site "Pooling Open Software" * Content * Update / maintenance * Technical issues Questions : 1. Please identify clearly yourself and the public sector service(s) you are coordinating or representing 2. Do you own or represent rights on software developed by or for the administration (for internal needs or for exchange with other administration, citizens or companies)? If "Yes", what are the application domains (accounting, human resources management, etc...)? (If needed, join annex) 3. According to your estimation, could some of that software be used or adapted for other administrations in your country or in Europe? 4. Would you agree to allow open source sharing of your software under conditions? If "Yes", under conditions of a license which would allow: o Downloading of the source code on demand. o Code modification by user under his responsibility. o Code integration in other software o New code re-distribution to other users o Other condition (please specify) Do you already know a convenient license model? Would you like a quick reference guide for choosing license model? 5. Do you wish to be able to control/limit users group of your software? o Only administrations o Service providers who make developments for administrations o Public (e.g. consultants) 6. According to you, which reasons could prevent sharing your software? o Legal issues (why?) o Economic issues (why?) o Other (please specify) 7. Could an European portal site help you to... o Make your software known o Get feedback about your software o Get software/components for your developments o Get information through users group, communities, forum... (Success story principle) o Be aware of evolution of the market o Other (please specify) 8. What could be your contribution to a pool of open source software? o Users support? o Documentation? o Update/maintenance? o Opinions, case study o Tests o Other (please specify) 9. Would you (your administration) be interested in the possibility to use software developed elsewhere (for or by other administrations, possibly from other European country)? THANKS FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION -- Loic Dachary http://www.dachary.org/ loic(a)dachary.org 12 bd Magenta http://www.senga.org/ loic(a)senga.org 75010 Paris T: 33 1 42 45 07 97 loic(a)gnu.org GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt

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RMS: a patiot?
by Max Moritz Sievers 16 Jan '02

16 Jan '02

I have visited stallman.org the fist time after 911. I wonder if he was (or felt) forced to put this graphic on his site: "America Means Civil Liberties - Patriotism Is Protecting Them" "Other Americans, you may wish to copy this icon to your own page, as a way of showing what patriotism means to you. " This doesn't sound as rms. And facing the development in the USA and the whole "civilized" world with the SSSCA and the Hague Treaty the words on his banner don't make sense. Regards, Max Moritz Sievers

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activity in germany
by eric 16 Jan '02

16 Jan '02

Interesting to see that the open source discussion manages to be the first topic you find when accessing a political site. http://www.spdfraktion.de/ or the discussion forum: http://www.spdfraktion.de/dialog/forum/ ERic

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[reb@b4mad.net: Re: UK Government Report: "Open Source - The UK Opportunity"]
by Rodger Etz-Brown 15 Jan '02

15 Jan '02

Sorry, I didn't notice the cc: to discussion. So here it is for everybody. ----- Forwarded message from Rodger Etz-Brown <reb(a)b4mad.net> ----- Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 12:53:33 +0100 From: Rodger Etz-Brown <reb(a)b4mad.net> To: fsfe-uk(a)gnu.org Subject: Re: UK Government Report: "Open Source - The UK Opportunity" User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.25i I have given a presentation in front of the head of the IT directorate at the DTI in 2000. Aim was to explain the idea of Free Software, the changes this will bring to the S/W industry and what this means for customers. The presentation took two hours in which all DTI participants showed great interest in the matter. They were especially interested to hear about the commercial effects this has to 'their clients', i.e. S/W companies and companies using proprietary S/W. They were furthermore interested to here what effect the widespread use of FS would have to the economy overall. The DTI seemed to hear about Free Software for the first time in greater detail at the presentation. I initiated the meeting as Managing Director of ID-PRO UK, which soon afterwards folded due to the collapse of ID-PRO AG in Germany. We were supposed to have a follow-up meeting where we would provide the DTI with more information. The DTI is more interested to hear from associations that represent serveral companies rather than from a single company as they fear they would get biased information. We also had a contact to a member of the House of Commons. That person was interested to do some lobbying for us. The first step would have been to report to an unoficial commision about Free Software. The audience would have been politicians and company owners / managers. I am happy to provide you guys with the details of the DTI folks I have been talking to. Please mail me off the list. For the political lobbying I won't be able to give out the information as the whole business is run by 'old-shool-ties'. We just managed to get in due to a good friend of ours that occasionally goes to visit the Blairs during their hols and watches security people playing football in their red undies :) Tada, REB P.S.: Excuse my spelling and the the last paragraph. I just got up ;) On Sat, Jan 12, 2002 at 04:21:38PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote: > I've just been given a link to "UK fails to make the most of open source" at > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23653.html by a colleague here at > Luminas. Does anyone have further information on the report "Open Source - > The UK Opportunity" mentioned in it? Was anyone here consulted for it? > > How can we best respond to this in particular? Further discussion on the > FSFE-UK list, please. > > Thanks in advance, > -- > MJR ,---------------------------------------------------- > | Q. Do you need a net-based application developing, > | or advice and training about web technology? > | A. I suggest you try http://www.luminas.co.uk/ > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion(a)fsfeurope.org > http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discussion ----- End forwarded message -----

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FOSDEM Round Table?
by Henrion Benjamin 12 Jan '02

12 Jan '02

Hello, I'm involved in the organisation of the FOSDEM (we're preparing a computer classroom and wireless APs for the meeting) and I would like to know if there will be a FSF Europe Round Table with all the members present. Do you have ideas for that? What do you attend for? Thanks BNJ

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UK Government Report: "Open Source - The UK Opportunity"
by MJ Ray 12 Jan '02

12 Jan '02

I've just been given a link to "UK fails to make the most of open source" at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23653.html by a colleague here at Luminas. Does anyone have further information on the report "Open Source - The UK Opportunity" mentioned in it? Was anyone here consulted for it? How can we best respond to this in particular? Further discussion on the FSFE-UK list, please. Thanks in advance, -- MJR ,---------------------------------------------------- | Q. Do you need a net-based application developing, | or advice and training about web technology? | A. I suggest you try http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: MobiliX.org: severe charge with trademark issues by "Asterix and Obelix"
by Josef Dalcolmo 12 Jan '02

12 Jan '02

wk(a)gnupg.org said: > To protect yourself from his expensive "letters" you can hire him as a > lawyer. I know a company in my home town which exactly did this. That would support him, and look really like Mafia (pay for protection...) I am against that. - Josef

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FSF Europe ThankGNUs Policy 2002
by Georg C. F. Greve 10 Jan '02

10 Jan '02

Hi all, we have been discussing the topic of monthly donations some time ago without a real result. One of the problems was that the structure should not become too complicated while remaining fair and treating every donor equally. In order to keep things simple, the categories for 2002 will be modified as follows: Supporter: EUR 10 every month OR EUR 120 in a year. Contributor: EUR 50 every month OR EUR 600 in a year. Sustaining Contributor: EUR 100 every month OR EUR 1200 in a year. Patron: EUR 500 every month OR EUR 6000 in a year. Late starting monthly donors will get a "(mm/yy-)" suffixed, early stopping monthly donors get a "(-mm/yy)" and people who start late and end early in a year get a "(mm/yy-mm/yy)." This will hopefully encourage monthly donations while keeping the structure consistent enough with the ThankGNUs list of the FSF in Boston. We sought to keep the monthly amounts attractive and even, so the numbers are a little higher. Given that the exchange rate between EUR and USD is 1.13, this makes for approximately equal amounts. Updated web pages for this are prepared and online at http://fsfeurope.org/help/donate-2002.html Translating them into other languages might be useful. We were considering to create some sort of little banner/graphic that donors could put on their web page to announce their support. What do you think? Does this make sense? Is anyone willing (and capable) to create such a graphic? Alright, this is possibly my last posting to this list in 2001. I wish to thank everyone who supported us this year and wish everyone a good and successful New Year! May 2002 be a good year for Free Software. 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)

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Fwd: Linux Documentation Author Werner Heuser threatened with 6 months imprisonment or 250.000.- EURO penalty for supposed tradmark infringment
by John Tapsell 09 Jan '02

09 Jan '02

This seemed relevant - recieved from linuxdoc.org mailing lists.. ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Linux Documentation Author Werner Heuser threatened with 6 months imprisonment or 250.000.- EURO penalty for supposed tradmark infringment Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2002 15:25:30 +0100 From: Kurt Pfeifle <kpfeifle(a)danka.de> To: "announce(a)linuxdoc.org" <announce(a)linuxdoc.org>, "discuss(a)linuxdoc.org" <discuss(a)linuxdoc.org>, "docbook(a)linuxdoc.org" <docbook(a)linuxdoc.org> Cc: wehe(a)mobilix.org Off topic -- cross posting is deliberate... ############################################################################# ############### ## 6 months imprisonment or 250.000.- EURO penalty to Linux Documentation Author -- ## for infringing comic character "Obelix" through free Laptop support Website "MobiliX"?? ############################################################################ ################ After having gotten a request (in June 2001) from German legal representatives of "Les Editions Albert Rene" (Paris), holder of the trademarks "Asterix" and "Obelix", to unregister the name MobiliX, they now took legal action against Werner Heuser (mailto:wehe@mobilix.org), well-known amongst Linux-laptop users for authoring the "Linux-Mobile-Guide" (formerly called the Laptop-HOWTO), published by the Linux Documentation Project. MobiliX (http://mobilix.org/), his own website, is dedicated to "Mobile UniX systems" on laptops, PDAs, cell phones and more. It carries lots of useful hands-on information about installing and running Linux and BSD on laptops, PDAs and other mobile computer devices -- and of course it is free to use via the internet. It exists since five years and besides the famous site "Linux on Laptops" (http://www.linux-laptop.net) by Kenneth E. Harker it seems to be biggest resource on this topic. MobiliX is an acronym of the words "mobile" and "UniX". To avoid legal trouble, Werner had registered this name at the German trademark register in 1999. It is a common practice to build new names for Unix related topics from a word naming the topic and adding the letters "iX" at the end. Some examples are: AIX, Eurix (Comfood), Sinix (Siemens-Nixdorf), SkroBelix, Skyrix, Ultrix, Xenix. The German computer magazine iX is even just named by these letters. The name Unix itself is a registered trademark of AT&T, X/Open. The very name Mobilix is already registered for a German manufacturer of children furniture -- but don't seem infringed, because of the different industry they are in. Before the legal action, Werner didn't reference in any way towords comic characters Asterix or Obelix on his web pages. The name of his website MobiliX.org is supposed to be mistaken for Obelix, according to the charges. The trademark Obelix was registered by German lawyer Guenter Freiherr v. Gravenreuth. The legal charge is up to 250.000 USD or six months prison. The costs of the first instance are app. 15.000 USD. Werner Heuser has decided not to withdraw the name "MobiliX". He is supported by the German lawyers Jaschinski, Biere und Brexl - JBB (http://www.jbb-berlin.de). This case is another one in the recent series of trademark troubles for Free Software projects (SAMBA, Kylix, Kilustrator, SELFHTML, SuSE, ..). Therefore this case is very important not only because many of these projects have names ending on "iX". Current news about the case are at http://mobilix.org/mobilix_asterix.html Please support Werner to fight this attack. [submitted by Kurt Pfeifle <pfeifle(a)kde.org>] -- +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | .--. CUPS + ESP PrintPro: | | | |o_o | ******************** | | | ~ |:_/ | Unix/Linux Printing made fun and easy | | ° ° // \ \ http://www.danka.de/printpro/faq.html | | /V\ (| | ) .~. Kurt Pfeifle, Danka Deutschland GmbH | | // \\ /'\_ _/`\ /V\ Tel.: +49-172-715.7017 | | /( )\ \___)=(___ )/( )\ mailto:kpfeifle@danka.de | | ^`~'^ ^^~^^ | | Network Printing Services: Consulting+Training+Workshops+Troubleshooting | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ _________________________ http://list.linuxdoc.org/ -------------------------------------------------------

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Discussion January 2002