FSFE-IE June 2008

fsfe-ie@lists.fsfe.org

8 participants
9 discussions

Re: [Fsfe-ie] FSFE-IE Digest, Vol 61, Issue 7
by Barry Mahon 27 Jun '08

27 Jun '08

On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:00:23 +0100, <fsfe-ie-request(a)fsfeurope.org> wrote: > > Hi Ben. > >> Today I received the NSAI's response to my request > > I'll get round to studying the response later. But first: Thanks for > your work on this. Agreed, great work and SO frustrating to find that NSAI is a 'protected species' - disgusting. Could we ask (or maybe we already know?) who the members of the standards committee on ICT are?? Bye, Barry

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OpenMoko Neo Freerunner on sale, bulk buy special
by Ciaran O'Riordan 26 Jun '08

26 Jun '08

If anyone's interested in a needs-DIY free-est mobile phone available, then the OpenMoko Freerunner might be of interest: http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner They have a promo for regions where 10 people group-buy them: http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/GroupSales The price is $369 (xe.com says that's €235) plus shipping (which should also be cheaper in bulk than if done individually). >From what I've heard, this version is definitely not ready to be a used as your main mobile phone, and you should be ok with installing and upgrading software. I don't know much else about the reliability or feature set. I saw complaints about batter life, but I also saw people saying that was largely fixed recently. -- Ciarán O'Riordan (+32 477 36 44 19) \ Support Free Software and GNU/Linux http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ Join FSFE's Fellowship: http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ http://www.fsfe.org

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Darklight festival talk, possibly of interest
by Glenn Strong 26 Jun '08

26 Jun '08

Hi Folks, I have received the following information from Caroline at the Darklight festival; and she asked me to pass it on. It may be of interest to people who are into free society, privacy, and free speech issues. ----- Forwarded message ------ On Friday next at 10am in Filmbase, Templebar the people who first brought Larry Lessig to Dublin are having Prof Daniel Solove author of "The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet" speak together with a panel including Damien Mulley, Jim Carroll, Niall Larkin, and Cormac Callanan. We're going to take a look at the mirror to the soul that is facebook and the powers wielded by the blogging community in deciding peoples fates. Prof. Solove will take a lawyerly look at the fates of little fatty, dog poop girl and star wars kid. We'll ask: • Can bloggers say what they like? • What's wrong with having nothing to hide? • Who is really stalking you on Facebook? .. Does anyone care anymore? It's early I know……but we'll have coffees. Hope you can make it. If you need further info beforehand let me know. If you could send it out on your mailing list to members it wld be great - as there is a definite tie-in between our organisations- Darklight has always promoted opensource, open content and the creative commons. Please see this years remix project- Dublin: The Movie (AKA The Darklight 4-Day Film Project) on our website www.darklight.ie.

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FOI request to NSAI: response received
by Ben North 26 Jun '08

26 Jun '08

Today I received the NSAI's response to my request, and they have refused to provide almost all of the records sought. Their reason for this refusal is 32(1)(a) of the FOI Act, which states that the head (of the FOI dept of the FOI-covered body, as I understand this term to be used) shall refuse to grant a request if the disclosure of the record concerned is prohibited by any enactment. Text of sec.32 of the act is available at http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1997/en/act/pub/0013/sec0032.html The letter from the NSAI goes on to cite sec.5 of schedule 2 of the NSAI Act 1996 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1996/en/act/pub/0028/gen_8.html#sch2_p32 which states Disclosure of information. 5. (1) Subject to subparagraph (3), a person shall not disclose any information obtained by that person— (a) while performing duties as a member of the Board or of any committee appointed under this Act or as a member of staff of, or adviser or consultant to, the Authority, or (b) as a member of or as a member of staff of any body consulted in pursuance of the provisions of this Act, while performing duties relating to any such consultation. (2) A person who contravenes subparagraph (1) shall be guilty of an offence. (3) Nothing in subparagraph (1) shall prevent— (a) disclosure of information in a report made by the Authority (or on its behalf) to the Minister, or (b) disclosure of information by the Authority or by a member of the Authority or by a member of any committee appointed under this Act for the purpose of a scheme of research and development or a scheme of acquisition of product and process technology. Therefore it seems the NSAI's FOI officer has no discretion in the matter and must refuse almost all of my request. The records they did provide are documentation of their procedures. The documents are as follows. Procedures Manual: Establishment, selection, operation, review and disbandment of a Standards Consultative Committee (rev.11, 200711) I have only skimmed this, but one relevant section seems to be 4.2.3: 4.2.3 Consensus Matters within the Committee shall as far as possible be decided by consensus. "Consensus" is defined as general agreement characterised by the absence of sustained opposition to substantial issues by any important part of the concerned interests, and by a process that involves seeking to take into account the views of all parties concerned and to reconcile any conflicting arguments. Consensus need not imply unanimity. In the absence of consensus votes may be taken and the results reported to NSAI by the Secretary for consideration in making an NSAI decision on the matter. Procedures Manual: Attendance at International and European Standardization Meetings (rev.11, 200605) Again, I've only skimmed this. Nothing too startling. The last sentence of sec.4.5 says Delegates or experts shall not use their membership of a CEN, ISO or ETSI committee or working group in furtherance of a company viewpoint. Earlier in sec.4.5, it talks about delegations "represent Ireland/the NSAI --- and so their personal business or trade affiliations must be a secondary consideration." Work Instruction: Default Voting System (rev.1, 200708) I don't fully understand what this document says. There is a page with a table titled "ISO VOTING". This table seems to suggest that 'abstain' is the 'Default default voting position' (repetition of 'default' in original) for 'Committee Docs' but I'm afraid I can't interpret this one very well. Procedures Manual: Standards Appeal Procedure (rev.1, 200605) Outlines the procedure followed by the NSAI in the event of an appeal with regard to one of their decisions. The examples it gives as grounds for appeal include: The decision of NSAI Standards was irrational, perverse or manifestly unreasonable. The response from the NSAI also included a copy of a form letter which was sent to people who enquired about the OOXML decision. I can't find this on the web, so here it is: Dear , I write in response to your website enquiry regarding the recent approval of DIS 29500 Open Office XML by ISO. First of all it is necessary to explain that all the global ISO/IEC standards that NSAI deals with are voluntary consensus documents. They are not regulations or state-imposed edicts. NSAI co-ordinates national discussion and comment before a decision is made on the national vote on these specifications. In this case an Ad-Hoc Group, reporting to NSAI's ICT Standards Consultative Committee, was set up to examine the draft of DIS 29500 over last summer. NSAI's ICT SCC is a representative group reflecting different and varied strands of opinion. In August NSAI voted No on DIS 29500, citing 12 technical comments as the reasons for this negative vote. This, in effect, was a conditional Yes vote - conditional on these 12 comments being addressed. The standard failed to achieve approval at this stage because of the number of National Standards Bodies holding similar reservations. A week-long Ballot Resolution Meeting was held in Geneva in February to address the technical comments raised by all National Standards Bodies, attended by an Irish delegation. NSAI's ICT SCC then met to discuss the resolution of Ireland's 12 comments and it was a clear majority view that the comments had been addressed satisfactorily. NSAI decided to vote positively in the final vote on this basis. At the world level (ISO/IEC) there was a strong majority of participating members in favour of the standard at the final vote (the minimum requirement is 67% of votes). A huge amount of work had gone in to resolving thousands of national comments and this seems to have paid off in terms of the revised standard receiving more support than before. Once again the result (ISO/IEC 29500) is a voluntary consensus specification. I hope that this is of interest, Regards, Enda McDonnell Director of Standards They also refunded my two fees, which I don't think they were obliged to do. Mr Henry's letter was polite, and he apologised for the delay in responding. I think this is probably the end of this avenue, then. Their procedures say that they can fall back to a vote if consensus cannot be achieved, and the letter says that such a vote was in favour of a 'yes' response to ISO. We could consider appealing, but I would be amazed if it went anywhere. Their (possibly mildly circular) logic would probably be along the lines that their committee voted in favour, so therefore the decision cannot be manifestly unreasonable. There's no point appealing the decision to refuse the FOI request to the Information Commissioner, because the wording of the FOI Act and NSAI Act is clear. There's no room for 'public interest' arguments, say. Unless anybody has any other ideas, I think we'll have to consider this matter closed, alas. For futures standards work, though, we could possibly express our concerns about the lack of transparency of the NSAI's operations to the Minister for Enterprise and Employment. Any thoughts on that? Ben.

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Possible conference of interest
by Malcolm Tyrrell 22 Jun '08

22 Jun '08

This may interest some of you: http://fscons.org/ "Three big names from the world of community movements: Free Software Foundation Europe(FSFE), Creative Commons and Wikimedia, come together under the banner of Free Society at this year’s FSCONS in Gothenburg Sweden. The lectures and events surrounding the conference will range from modern Kernel design over citizen journalism all the way across to licensing in the 21st century." Malcolm

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IFSO Meeting: Tuesday 24th June, 20h00, White Horse Inn
by Malcolm Tyrrell 22 Jun '08

22 Jun '08

Hi all. This month's IFSO meeting will be this coming Tuesday, the 24th*. We have co-located the event with a FSFE Fellowship meet-up: http://www.fsfeurope.org/ so there may be some new Free Software supporters in attendance. As usual, it will be in the White Horse Inn at 20h00: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=53.34678&lon=-6.25653&zoom=17&layers=B0F Looking forward to seeing you there. Malcolm * As a temporary change, this month's meeting is on the fourth, not third, Tuesday of the month.

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OpenStreetMap conference: Limerick July 12,13
by Ciaran O'Riordan 18 Jun '08

18 Jun '08

I don't know what an OpenStreetMap conference is like, but there'll be one in Limerick on the weekend of July 12 and 13: http://www.stateofthemap.org/ "But where's Limerick?" I hear you ask. And that's the brilliance of OpenStreetMap!!!1111!one http://openstreetmap.org/?lat=52.63&lon=-8.68&zoom=8&layers=B00FT It's South of Galway, West of Kilkenny, and North of Cork. Now. -- Ciarán O'Riordan (+32 477 36 44 19) \ Support Free Software and GNU/Linux http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ Join FSFE's Fellowship: http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ http://www.fsfe.org

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NO IFSO MEETING TONIGHT
by Malcolm Tyrrell 17 Jun '08

17 Jun '08

Hi all. This is the third Tuesday of the month. However, we will not be having an IFSO meeting tonight. Instead, the IFSO AGM will be happening soon. I'll post an announcement of that when we confirm the details. Good luck, Malcolm

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Ackowledgement from NSAI
by Ben North 04 Jun '08

04 Jun '08

Hi, A week ago, I sent an email to the list with a brief update on my Freedom of Information request to the NSAI regarding various aspects of their decision to vote 'yes' in the OOXML process. Today I received a letter acknowledging my request. It is dated 22 May 2008, and looks like a form letter. (I wonder how many FOI requests the NSAI gets?) It explains the FOI process, and gives the relevant dates as follows: Your request date 22 April 2008 [...] was received by the NSAI on 29 April 2008. [...] you can expect a decision letter to issue from the NSAI not later than 28th May 2008. I'm not quite sure why it took a week for my letter to get to them, but it does look like it might be early June before I hear their decision, or, if I hear nothing, can appeal their 'refusal by non-response'. I'll keep this list informed. Ben.

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FSFE-IE June 2008