FSFE-IE July 2003

fsfe-ie@lists.fsfe.org

12 participants
21 discussions

Wiki
by Fergal Daly 07 Jul '03

07 Jul '03

Thanks Adam, that's exceelent. I've stuck up some pages about patents. Very little info, but I just want to get the ball rolling. I hope my attitude to the wiki is not too different from everyone elses. I don't see it as a public presence for other people to browse (especially as it's so easily defacable). I see it as our collective memory [1]. Somewhere we can collect information so that when anyone has to meet someone and argue our case, they can go to the wiki and find what they need. We should also have a public presence/website somewhere too but for me, that's not a burning issue. We may be meeting MEPs this week we need to be prepared, the wiki is a great tool for this. If you read something new or interesting about patents, link to it on the wiki, throw in quick summary of what it says and how it differs from previous articles. Then post to the list so others can either just read your summary or follow the link. That way we can distribute the reading task and hopefully get all the best bits of the literature that's out there, without everyone having to read everything. There's a a page where we can make a list of all the arguments against. http://beecher.net/scripts/phpwiki/index.php/ArgumentsAgainstPatents I've just added 2 without much detail. It'd be great if people could add some more. If everyone on this list just added 1 argument against SWP - be as brief or as detailed as you like - and gave a link to more detailed docs on it then we'd have plenty to bring to these MEPs when we meet them. Don't be shy, no one gives a toss about your writing style, we need content, not presentation and with a wiki, you can always come back and prettify it later if you want and other people can prettify your work too. Lots of stories and arguments came up a the meeting last week, it'd be great to see them recorded somewhere. Also, it'd be good if the action points from the meeting got up there too, maybe with a page for each to track the progress or collect useful info, F [1] First person to say "you will be assimilated" gets a slap

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FF MEPs
by Fergal Daly 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

I just spoke to David Harmon who works with the FF MEPs, he said they haven't finalised a position and would be interested in talking to us. He will be going to Brussells next week to talk to Feargus O'Beara who I think is on the Telecoms panel over there. He will have more info next week. I think I will be away when he is free so we might need someone else to meet up with him. Is anyone actively writing a paper or stealing good papers from FFII etc? F

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Feedback to the reg on the original free software
by Ben Klaasen 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

Hi - Malcolm posted an article from the reg a short while ago which critiqued the approach taken by software freedom advocates in dealing with politicians; this article dicusses some of the reader feedback they've had to that article. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/31553.html regards Ben

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electronic voting
by Margaret McGaley 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

To whom it may concern, E-voting poses a threat to our democracy. This is my conclusion after 5 months of research into the topic for my undergraduate thesis. My results are available online at http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~afrodite/E-Voting/ I hope to mount a campaign over the next few months with the following goals: - to prevent the use of the Nedap/Powervote system in Irish elections, - to prevent the purchase of any more equipment or software from Nedap/Powervote by the Irish government, and - to ensure that any electronic voting system introduced in Ireland meets the following criteria - a booth is used, analagous to the traditional polling booth, - all development uses formal methods, - votes are printed on a paper ballot to be verified by the voter, - all source code is publicly available. If you would be interested in getting involved in such a campaign, or have any advice/comments, please contact me at Margaret.McGaley(a)Redbrick.DCU.IE or join (or mail) the mailing list e-voting(a)lists.stdlib.net by going to http://lists.stdlib.net/mailman/listinfo/e-voting Please forward this mail to anyone you think may be interested. Thanks, Margaret McGaley -- Margaret McGaley Margaret.McGaley(a)redbrick.dcu.ie http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~afrodite/E-Voting/

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Patents
by Malcolm Tyrrell 03 Jul '03

03 Jul '03

Hi there. It was great to meet (many of) you last night. Surprisingly, two things have happened already since then: Firstly, someone from Avril Doyle's (MEP, FG) office rang me. She said that Avril was "watching this situation closely". It sounds like she would be interested in more commentry, suggestions for ammendments, etc. Secondly, Francois Pellegrini, who gave an anti-software patents talk at GUADEC, mailed me with advice on how to lobby Irish MEPs. After seeing him talk, I'd e-mailed him to get his slides (which can be got from http://www.abul.org/brevets/conferences/?abul_lang=3Den --- these are very good overviews of the situation). Francois' key point is: > Regarding the argumentation, focus on economy, > not on ideology. Try to separate the swpat > case from the libre software case. It would > be good if you could bring the CEO of some > Irish software SMEs (preferrably not from the > libre software field but rather the proprietary > software field) to express concerns to the MEPs. He also warns that Mac Carthy's husband (I assume he means Arlene McCarthy --- one of the chief proponents of software patents in Europe) is a well known political journalist in Ireland. Specifically, he says: > you will have to be very careful of what the MEPs tell you, because > they have already been lobbied. Whew! My most political morning ever! Good luck, Malcolm. P.S. As my letter seems to generated some responses it may be of some use as a reference. I've put in on my web page (latex source & .ps): http://www.cs.tcd.ie/Malcolm.Tyrrell/Patents/

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Wiki
by Aidan Delaney 03 Jul '03

03 Jul '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I have been trying to set up a Wiki, however I can't send mail from my web server - thus I can't register new users. Does anyone else have a webserver for this Wiki? - -- Thanks, Aidan Delaney - -- If anyone has both the right and the need to study the code and be assured of its correct functioning, it is users. -- Whitfield Diffie Checksums of bad data tell you only: "yup, that's exactly the same bad data the other guy has" -- Tom Lord gpg key: http://minds.cs.may.ie/~balor/public_key.asc -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/A/qJR5d8aoUiMO0RAi6MAKC2uapjOjq2bhykG4dupSBJKWomWQCfSUQQ RYfgD7lPeswkfLFCYVAvaw4= =RiYM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Notes from July 2nd FreeSoftware Gathering
by Ciaran O'Riordan 03 Jul '03

03 Jul '03

Notes from July 2nd FreeSoftware Gathering. Of the 11 people who said they'd try to make it, 10 showed up plus two unannounced people. The meeting started off in Messrs Maquires pub and later moved to the better venue of <pub>. (where <pub> is across the road from O'Neills behind Trinity, begins with a H) Here (verbatim) are the notes that were taken about what we could be doing to fight s/w pats. 1/ Acquire analysis of proposal - look around FFII 2/ Discover groups to lobby 3/ Create form letter 4/ Finding Companies & industry groups 5/ Mail journalists 6/ Calander 7/ Analysis of USA 8/ Analysis of alternatives (different patent term) 9/ What is status quo 10/ Analysis of FSF(e)-IE & own interests in SW development 11/ List of applications whose patenting would have been tragic Thanks to all who attended.

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#fsfe-ie
by Aidan Delaney 03 Jul '03

03 Jul '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hey all, I've comendeered #fsfe-ie on irc.linux.ie - -- Thanks, Aidan Delaney - -- If anyone has both the right and the need to study the code and be assured of its correct functioning, it is users. -- Whitfield Diffie Checksums of bad data tell you only: "yup, that's exactly the same bad data the other guy has" -- Tom Lord gpg key: http://minds.cs.may.ie/~balor/public_key.asc -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/A/4nR5d8aoUiMO0RAhUZAKDhl8Jp2lMtGU20dsZ2uwRaii4LegCghs4L 3lpNZ94QerkHy2akFx9nc8c= =P5ya -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Meeting details for tonight (FreeSoftware gathering)
by Ciaran O'Riordan 02 Jul '03

02 Jul '03

We now have 11 people that have decided to come along. The plan is to grab 11 seats somewhere on the top floor since it's the quietest. How will you recognise us? I'll stick some pages with "fsfe-ie" printed on them on the table. Hopefully the "Food Stuffs For Everyone - Including Ethiopians" group won't show up and cause confusion. Or look for any of these people: Ciaran O'Riordan (www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/images/ciaran_photograph.png) Linas Jakucionis Ben Klaasen Malcolm Tyrrell 3jane Aidan Delaney Kevin O'Riordan Paul Reilly Fergal Daly Robert Fitzsimons Sean O'Donnell Hopeful goals: Fighting software patents, Adopt-an-MEP project?, does anyone have useful access to politicians or the media?, find out what projects people would like to work on, anyone interested in making a FreeSoftware Press Pack?, find out who is well informed and who wants to be well informed, find out who we are so that we can organise quicker next time there is a fightable threat to Free Software, drink decent micro-brewery beers/ales/stouts, who would be interested in setting up a formal Irish non-profit?, etc. etc.

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meeting thingy
by Fergal Daly 02 Jul '03

02 Jul '03

Book me a chair please, F

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FSFE-IE July 2003