Discussion March 2005

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

31 participants
16 discussions

RE: Linux Party [warning political]
by Maurice McCarthy 18 Mar '05

18 Mar '05

Hi I've listening in but not contributing as I'm too heavily engaged elsewhere. However, after the post just in I thought you might like to see this (since I've just completed it.) >Subject: Re: Linux Party [warning political] > >Simon Morris wrote: > >>I like this idea. You need to spread the culture of Free software as >>well as the end product (Linux and GNU) >> >>A good hook here would be campaigning against the kind of practices >>that Music companies employ to prevent our freedom (DMCA) >> >> >> >I think what people are looking for is something like hipatia >(http://www.hipatia.info/) which connects activists across Latin >America/Spain/Italy and India. Hipatia generalizes from free >software to 'promote freedom of (and free sharing of) knowledge, >as the right of all human beings to access, use, create, modify and >distribute knowledge freely and openly'. It works as a pressure group >and an NGO rather than a party. Software is an art-form and therefore it could be against the European and United Nations Charters of Human Rights to patent software. This is on the grounds of an infringement of the right of free expression. These Charters exceed the authority of TRIPS and so the case may be arguable all the way to the European Court of Justice. This justifies my media strategy of addressing cultural institutions to lobby their support in the struggle against the swpat directive. Proof. Science and Art both bring forth ideas. The difference between them is that the second embodies the idea in concrete form whereas the first leaves the idea abstract. That is why speak of the 'state of the art' in technology. Technology, too, embodies ideas in concrete form. Usually we think of this as *merely* a metaphor or analogy but the genius of language is always more intelligent than mere mortals. If a man sails to the Galapagos and compares two birds on adjacent islands he might find that they are both finches but their species are differentiated by the form of the beak. This cognitive power of comparison is what brought forth the whole idea of evolution in the mind of Darwin. The kind of cognition used in the study of the comparative biological sciences is the same kind of mental act as used by the poet and artist. (This is elaborated by Kant in the Critique of Judgment.) Thus the faculty of comparison or analogy or metaphor, the seeing of coincident form in particulars, is the same kind of judgment as artistic expression. Comparison bridges the gap between science and art. It is a *living* thinking. Software, because of its high abstraction, and its embodiment both sit astride this same gap. At one and the same time software may be considered both a science and an art form. Software takes human ideas and embodies them in programs, protocols, device drivers and the like. Software, too, has been evolved. Ideas seen as useful are often used over so as not to keep 're-inventing the wheel'. Debugging is where the aesthetics of software occurs. Code is modified to make the expression more efficient; the order of execution altered to make a more pleasing whole etc. It is the same process in crafting a novel or painting an oil, change this or change that to make it look right. However, because of its evolved, relational form every monopoly over an idea is infringing the artist's right to free expression. It encroaches on all sides the freedom of the human spirit. Eventually patent would lead to the loss of the art-form all together. Freedom of expression is a political right as much as an artistic one. QED Thus if software is patentable at all then a cultural body should be given over-sight to make sure that it is in the public interest. This body should love software for its own sake and not as means to economic gain. This body should be FFII. Either this or it should be enacted that no form of software is a technology in order to preserve the integrity of the Charters of Human Rights. Maurice

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FSFE Fellowship - Ciaran O'Riordan
by Matthias Kirschner 17 Mar '05

17 Mar '05

Hi all, if you have some time, take a look at Ciaran's website [1]. He wrote an article about "Why and how to help FSF Europe's Fellowship program". With best wishes, Matze 1. http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/fsfe-fellowship.html -- Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)

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Re: Fw: Linux Party [warning political]
by Simon Morris 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

>--- Sid Dabster wrote: >--- "Morris, Simon" <Simon.Morris(a)cmtww.com> wrote: >> -----QUOTE SID DABSTER----- >> . >> Today I have managed to get Steve Ballmer's office >> fax number, if we had group we could on mass fax >> that >> number at particular day. >> -----END QUOTE----- >> > >I was against the DDOS attack on SCO as I said on the >Usenet at the time, and as an innocent bystander >whos inbox was filled with the MyDoom virus I did >not like it. The reason I have not revealed >the FAX number is that I am responisble. > Sid. You said this evening that you have Steve Ballmers office fax number and if 'we' had a group we could mass fax that number on a particular day. Firstly how is this any different to Linux advocates DDOSing the SCO site which is an activity you did not like? Which political point are you trying to make by targeting his fax machine in this way? Secondly if it was a good idea earlier this evening why have you now U-turned under a mask of responsibility? It's either a good idea or not. As I stated earlier in this discussion I think our energies can be concentrated in a more positive manner Best Rgds ~sm

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Fw: Linux Party [warning political]
by Morris, Simon 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

-----Original Message----- From: Morris, Simon <Simon.Morris(a)cmtww.com> To: 'sid_dabster(a)yahoo.ca' <sid_dabster(a)yahoo.ca> Sent: Mon Mar 14 21:55:21 2005 Subject: Re: Linux Party [warning political] Firstly, apologies for posting from a horrible broken MUA... -----QUOTE SID DABSTER----- The Legalise Cannabis Alliance/Party was started in Norwichin 1997, <Snip> LCA could also used joint candidates, <Snip> . Today I have managed to get Steve Ballmer's office fax number, if we had group we could on mass fax that number at particular day. -----END QUOTE----- Legalise Cannabis Party...... "Joint candidates"???? Very good, Sid. Very droll :) And secondly No. You can't go mass faxing Steve Ballmer in the name of Free Software because it is _ILLEGAL_ What do you think would make you better than the rest of the spammers out there? Because you use a free operating system? As amusing as the repeated DOS attacks against SCO were they were illegal and wrong also, as prominent members of the community stood up and said Microsoft project the image of the Open Source Community as a bunch of unorganised vagabonds, who can't provide a good and professional service to their (Microsofts) potential client base. They also push Linux as an illegal product that breaks patent and copyright laws. Illegal activity is a) playing into their hands and b) not really the behaviour for a potential political candidate. Not in my name, sir! :) ~sm

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[Fwd: [clam-devel] [lincvs-users] Commercial version of LinCVS (fwd)]
by Tilo Riemer 07 Mar '05

07 Mar '05

Hello Xavier, > LinCVS has had contributions from many > others than the main developer. Which contributions do you mean? Best regards, Tilo -- Tilo Riemer mailto:riemer@lincvs.org Dresden, Germany http://www.lincvs.org http://www.iapp.de/~riemer/projects

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FSF Europe Newsletter
by FSF Europe 06 Mar '05

06 Mar '05

1. Fellowship of FSFE announced 2. Comments on WSIS/WGIG papers 3. Wilhelm Tux hits the apple 4. Software patents: the battle continues... 5. Microsoft tries to bypass European Court decision 1. Fellowship of FSFE announced After months of preparation and much hard work, the FSFE presented the Fellowship program at this year's FOSDEM event in Brussels. For a yearly fee of 120 Euro (60 Euro for students) you can become a fellow of FSFE and support its work politically, financially and through your activities. The Fellowship is a community with its own web portal where fellows can post blogs, share experiences in foras, and keep up to date with the latest news. Every fellow gets an email address in the fsfe.org domain to publicly display his or her support for Free Software. As a practical feature to strengthen their privacy and security, all Fellows also receive a unique, personalised OpenPGP-compliant SmartCard programmed and handled by Werner Koch, author of GnuPG and Head of Office of the FSFE. The card contains keys for electronic signatures, for encryption, and for state of the art secure key-based authentication. During the past months, we worked on the planning and designs of the Fellowship -- all designs were done pro-bono by the companies futurebrand, who did the imagery and SmartCard, and artundweise.de, who did the web page design. Special thanks go to the global Plone community that helped us quickly and competently with getting the site up within a little more than a week -- an amazing feat. Special thanks go to Russ Ferriday for help with the layout, as well as Riccardo Lemmi from reflab.it and Holger Lehmann from catworkx.de, who helped us with the not-entirely-trivial registration form. The Fellowship will be very important to give Free Software and those who actively work for digital freedom the necessary weight and resources. So if you have not yet signed up, please do so at http://www.fsfe.org 2. Comments on WSIS/WGIG papers On 1st February 2005, the United Nations Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) published a set of 20 issue papers concerning "Internet Governance." Together with its associate organisation La Fundación Vía Libre, the Free Software Foundation Europe managed to comment on the paper on "Cyber security, cybercrime", which, among other things, asked to outlaw the art of finding elegant solutions to non-obvious problems ("hacking") and the paper on "Intellectual Property Rights", which for instance asked to "balance human rights with the interests of rights-holders." For more information, see http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/wsis/ 3. Wilhelm Tux hits the apple The Swiss associate organisation of the FSFE, Wilhelm Tux, shows considerable activity: In Berne, Switzerland, an event called "LOTS" (Let's Open The Source) was organized and Georg Greve was invited to hold the keynote about Free Software. Also, several members of Wilhelm Tux joined the FSFE booth at FOSDEM. 4. Software patents: the battle continues... Politicians from all countries and of all parties show an ever increasing awareness of the potential damage an introduction of software patents in Europe would do to economy. While the Commission persists in the current directive draft and the Council still hasn't finally approved its position, the European Parliament officially demanded a restart of the whole process to get out of the current deadlock situation. 5. Microsoft tries to bypass European Court decision As reported in earlier newsletters, Microsoft has been asked to publish technical information about the interfaces to their Windows Operating System to enable competitors (most notably the Samba Free Software project) to reach Windows interoperability. However, the licensing terms that Microsoft now has published for these documents exclude Free Software in general and the GNU General Public License in particular. The FSFE will, together with the Samba team, continue to fight for just and reasonable conditions. You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html

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Discussion March 2005