Fw: Linux Party [warning political]

[Simon Morris]

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 06:25:59 -0500 (EST), Sid Dabster
<sid_dabster at yahoo.ca> wrote:

> Each person would send one fax message only written
> by hand, not a form letter. This show the receiving
> organisation be they government or company the
> strength of felling.

And what would this fax to Steve Balmer be saying? What message are
you proposing we send to him?

> The Doctor Who Appreciation
> Society (DWAS) complained after Colin Baker's Doctor
> had remained off the air,

Well _everyone_ knows Jon Pertwee was the best Dr Who. I'm sorry but
Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper?!? Pfft

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/characters/doctor/index.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/news/briefhistory/pertwee.shtml

> The fact is that even protest
> marches are technically illegal and stop traffic.

Since last month in the United Kingdom all forms of protest were made illegal

http://beerandspeech.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/world/uk/050228a.html

>
> In condemned the DDOS of SCO unlike Bruce Perens and
> several members of uk.comp.os.linux who claimed
> SCO had attacked themselves so they could blame
> the Linux community, this was a strang consipory
> idea, see Google groups for the details.
>
> There is nothing stopping have a party and having
> pressure groups, look at the environmental movement
> who has Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are
> pressure groups while the Green Party is a political
> party.

In my opinion a pressure group is going to be more effective. We can
apply pressure to local governments and organisations to further the
cause of the anti-software patent movement

The Free software community is such a disparate bunch of people. As
'the voice' of the community how would you balance the different
points of view amongst the community?

For example companies such as IBM and Novell are buying into Linux
mainly to strengthen their business model. No doubt the community
benefits from their input and investment but lets not have a romantic
idea that they are in out of pure love for Free Software.

Contrast that to the work of Debian developers who devote time for
little or no monetary benefit.

Different camps within the Linux community argue that Linux should
remain less corporate to keep the system free.... or that big
corporations should embrace Linux and add their own proprietary
extensions.

I think a party to represent the Linux community is trying to cover
too many bases - What would your perception be of a "Apple OS X Party
- campaigning to get people to use OS 10.3" or a "IBM Thinkpad Party"?

How about forming an anti-software patent party? This is an issue that
can draw people together and is more focussed. Plus you can appeal to
users of different systems as software patents are bad for everyone
who owns a computer

Best Rgds

~sm