1. What is set
2. What's not finished
3. What we need people to do
=====================================
1. What is set:
* The name (new) is "FOSS Means Business"
* The keynote speakers are Richard Stallman and Bruce Perens
* A substantial part of Stallman's presentation will be about GPLv3
* The date is March 16th, and it's whole-day event, probably 10am to 5:30pm
* The venue is Spires, Belfast
=====================================
2. What's not finished:
* setting the timetable for the day - this is only half set
* confirming some speakers
* raising funds for improving the event's appearance (we have 2000 sterling,
which covers the venue and loads of tea and coffee and buscuits, but we
are still waiting on funding for a meal and welcome packs)
=====================================
3. What we need people to do
Publicise this. Tell everyone to book the day out of the office, and to get
their boss to do the same.
* We need to tell mailing lists (Linux, free software, Unix, system
administrators, creative commons, computer societies, computer-user lists,
college societies, anything lists like that)
* blogs: blog about this and get others to do so too.
* Post to forums: I don't participate in many forums, so I don't know much
about this, but there must be people here that do know
* Send emails to news sites, and other sites, that have Events pages. Many
sites like this exist. I've so far gotten this mentioned on
http://www.ukuug.org/diary/ and on http://enn.ie/events.html
* If you have business contact lists, please inform them informally if that
is acceptable, or do so formally when we have a formal announcement ready
* If you have press contacts, there will be a press release made about this,
hopefully on Friday, so please be ready to forward that or tell someone
(like myself) the details for contacting that journalist / press person
* contribute to the wiki:
http://belfoss.org
(That is the official event wiki, for the public, so remember that the IT
managers that we are trying to impress will be looking there.)
* reply to this mail and tell me what I've forgotten
When I put "foss means business" into google (including quotes), I get zero
hits right now, so we can gauge how effective our web presence is spreading
by checking that each day. Every new hit will be because of us.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan, _________| Support free software: join FSFE's Fellowship
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ | & encourage others to do so: http://fsfe.org
___________________________| http://ciaran.compsoc.com/fsfe-fellowship.html
-------- Original Message --------
Posted at Mar 29, 2006 11:33 AM UTC
Source: NewsForge
Florian Mueller has dedicated much of his recent life to the minutiae of
European legislative process. With help from a host of others, he
successfully fought software patents in Europe. Today he's announcing
that he's written a book about the experience, delving deep into
European government and legislative process, and delivering a unique and
entertaining insight into the fusion of lobbying, open source software,
and activism that defined the patent battle of Europe.
http://entertainment.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/03/27/1351223&from=rss
"It really reads like a spy novel, very instructive as well as
entertaining and engaging."
(William New, IP Watch)
"You feel like you're standing in a parliament and talking directly to
the politicians who made the decisions."
(Kaj Arnö, MySQL AB)
"This book vividly conveys the feeling of what we experienced."
(Benjamin Henrion, FFII Belgium)
The book can be ordered from http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/
Paul O'Malley <ompaul(a)eircom.net> writes:
> The yearly KDE World Summit, Akademy, in 2006 will be held in Trinity
> College Dublin. It is a multi-day event for contributors to the KDE
> Free Desktop to meet up. Dates:September 23nd to 30th 2006. There will
> be no appalling vista just lots of dragons.
>
> It can be read on the Internet that dragons can be drakes (fire / ice).
IFSO will be assisting this event. More info is here:
http://dot.kde.org/1142439906/
Glenn has been doing the Akademy<->IFSO coordination, so he might have more
info.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan ______________________ \ To support free software, join
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _____________ \ and tell others about FSFE's
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
As many of you probably noticed, but were too polite to point out,
there was a typo in the name of the QuestionaireResponse page.
I have corrected now corrected it and the new page is at:
http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/QuestionaireResponse
The deadline has been extended to the 31st of March (tomorrow
week).
Unfortunately, I'm going on holiday tomorrow (well, unfortunately
for IFSO; I regard it a little more positively) and I won't be
able to finish the document and submit it. Can someone please
volunteer to do this? I have put the necessary links for the
EU and FFII pages on the page above. Our response doesn't have
to be perfect, but saying something is better than saying
nothing.
Good luck,
Malcolm.
___________________________________________________________
Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now. http://www.yahoo.co.uk/blackberry
I received this press release on the news(a)ffii.org list.
I've reformatted it to stop my web-mail client breaking lines in
annoying
places (you get the idea). The original is at:
http://wiki.ffii.org/Compat060322En
Good luck,
Malcolm.
==============8<------------------------------------------------------
PRESS RELEASE -- [ Europe / Economy / ICT ]
======================================================================
FFII Open Letter calls for participation in Community Patent
Consultation
======================================================================
22 March 2006 (Brussels, Belgium) The FFII urges European
businesses which produce or depend on software for their daily
operations to participate in the European Commission's
consultation on the Community Patent. The FFII provides a
detailed analysis as well as example answers to the questions.
The consultation's participation deadline is 31 March 2006.
Dear Corporate Supporters,
The EU Commission launched, two months ago, a consultation
procedure for a "final effort" to introduce EU-wide patents.
There is a strong chance that this process will legitimise
software patents, and make it easier and cheaper to use them in
court. We believe this would be very bad for the EU IT sector
and all businesses that depend on it. In our experience,
software patents lead to more lawsuits, not to more software.
The FFII has been working on analysing the consultation
procedure, and writing good answers to the Commission's
questions. Last week we also met the Commission's Erik
Nooteboom, who is in charge of the consultation, and we expressed
our concerns. We believe that the plan to create a wider patent
system is counter-productive without moves to ban once and for
all patents on ideas, methods, and algorithms, the basics of
software and the IT industry.
Our analysis is available in
* English: http://consultation.ffii.org/
* French: http://consultation.ffii.fr/
* Polish: http://www.ffii.org.pl/pat/cpat/kons/
* Dutch: http://www.ffii.be/gemeenschapsoctrooi
If you have time, read the whole analysis. If you are in a
hurry, we have prepared some example answers. You can also take
key points and use these to answer the questions in your own
words.
It is explained in detail on
http://consultation.ffii.org/How_to_Answer
As president of the FFII, the association that has been fighting
for six long years to protect your right to do business, by
keeping patents out of the software industry, I ask you to take
three concrete actions:
* First of all, answer the consultation, in your own words, in
email or on paper.
* Secondly, make a substantial donation to the FFII so that
we can continue to defend your rights.
* Lastly, forward this email to other businesses which produce
or use software so they can also answer.
The issue of software patents affects us all, and we must seize
this opportunity to influence the future laws. It is not often
that we can make a difference, but this is one of those few
times.
The FFII will be monitoring the consultation process and holding
open a dialogue with the Commission to represent you. If you
have questions, please send them to consultation(a)ffii.org.
With best regards
--
Pieter Hintjens
President, FFII e.V. <pieterh(a)ffii.org>
http://www.ffii.org
======================================================================
Background Information
======================================================================
* FFII English consultation website
http://consultation.ffii.org/
* FFII French consultation website
http://consultation.ffii.fr/
* FFII Polish consultation website
http://www.ffii.org.pl/pat/cpat/kons/
* FFII Dutch consultation website
http://www.ffii.be/gemeenschapsoctrooi
* Commission consultation page
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/indprop/patent/consultation_en.htm
* Flaws in the consultation procedure
http://consultation.ffii.org/Press_Release
* Permanent link to this press release
http://wiki.ffii.org/Compat060322En
======================================================================
Contact Information
======================================================================
Benjamin Henrion, FFII Brussels, +32-2-4148403, bhenrion(a)ffii.org
========================================================================
About FFII -- http://www.ffii.org
========================================================================
The FFII is a not-for-profit association registered in twenty
European countries, dedicated to the development of information
goods for the public benefit, based on copyright, free
competition, open standards. More than 850 members, 3,500
companies and 100,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act
as their voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion
rights (intellectual property) in data processing.
___________________________________________________________
Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now. http://www.yahoo.co.uk/blackberry
* GlennStrong FrontPageWed, 22 Mar 2006 08:00:02 -0000
To get an overview over this site and what it contains, see the SiteNavigation page.
To learn more about what a WikiWikiWeb is, read about MoinMoin:WhyWikiWorks and the MoinMoin:WikiNature. Also, consult the MoinMoin:WikiWikiWebFaq.
- [http://serlisblog.6dns.org/1-index.html index]
+
----
Interesting starting points:
* RecentChanges: see where people are currently working URL: http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/FrontPage?action=diff
It's the third Tuesday of the month, so the monthly IFSO meeting will
be held in Mahaffey's Pub at 2000h:
http://www.ifso.ie/images/mahaffeys.png
Items for discussion:
* The FOSS-means-business event
* The lunch on Sunday with Fernanda Weiden
* IFSO's response to the Patent's questionaire
(http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/QuestionaireReponse)
* GPLv3 process
* and many, many more
Hope to see you there,
Malcolm.
___________________________________________________________
Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now. http://www.yahoo.co.uk/blackberry
