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[fsf-community-team] Introduction - wow...


From: Simon Bridge
Subject: [fsf-community-team] Introduction - wow...
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:34:37 +1300

Warning - long post.

Introduction:

Like the rest of you I got an intro email asking me to demonstrate my
bonafides to the list - fairy nuff.

I am Simon Bridge from New Zealand.

I arrived at the software freedom door via the "open source + linux
user" pathway - though I am a very long time user of gnu, for much of
this time I had not discovered what that meant.

I am a hacker from way wayy back - old school - in NZ in the 80s the
term was used to denote a particular kind of competance derived from
play and curiosity. Hackers wanted to understand as well as do, and they
had fun with it.

I learned system basic on the trs80 - one of the early Z80 home
dosktops. They belonged to the school, and my parents would not buy me a
computer, so I ended up building one myself, slowly, around a motorolla
1802. It had 2k RAM and 2k EPROM (for the OS - wnich I had to write
directly in hex).

I was introduced to Redhat Linux 7.2 (it's a trademark - *they* left off
the GNU, not me) as a grad student at the University of Auckland in the
90s. When my own windows machine died, taking my thesis with it, I
installed RHL9 simply because I knew it and could not afford the
proprietary license. Like everyone else I was taking the
"pragmatic" ( == immoral) line.

The move to even that level of freedom felt like coming home. I felt
like a hacker again. I hadn't noticed I had lost that feeling. Thing is,
once a body has experienced a taste of freedom, you start noticing the
bars. When you tell people about this, they think you are crazy - what
bars?

At this stage I would have placed myself in the Open Source Party - it
is about a development model and productivity, not a social movement out
to change the world through computer software. But I didn't really think
about it.

Untill...

I had a child.

Having a kid changes everything.

Richard observes that a lot of people become more pragmatic - doing what
it takes to establish some security for their child's future. For me it
was the opposite - I wanted my son to be proud of me, and I wanted to
give him a world that was a little bit better than the one I got. I
deliberately looked around at what I was doing and what was happening to
see what I could do. And I saw the biggest positive effect I could have
was with these "Free Software" weirdos - because <deep breath> they may
have a point.

I took part in my first Software Freedom Day - to prepare I went to read
the philosophy I was supposed to be promoting to make sure I did a good
job at it. And I have not looked back.

I have been arguing and pushing and making a pain of myself ever since.

I have been politically active, pressuring politicians, advising
businesses, whatever I can stick my nose into - and I run night-school
courses with public seminars to raise awareness and keep it up.

In 2008 I noticed that there was a strong "pragmatism" drift and
resolved to correct this - solution: I invited RMS to tour.

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~corwin/rms08.html
I organized the tour, venues, publicity etc and drove Richard around the
North Island, and had him to stay in our home. This was tougher than
you'd expect as there was a lot of resistance... people would make
anonymous posts that he was a terrible guest and a rumor circulated that
he was unreliable and unprofessional. All untrue. At every venue, we
found that Microsoft had been there first and distributed gratis copies
of their more sought after products - a taste to make sure you stay
hooked.

In 2009, someone else organized another visit, but I played hotel and
driver.

If any of you get the opportunity to host Richard on one of his trips,
by all means take it. If you are in the younger set - don't worry: he
likes to meet the incoming generations. You guys are our future.


Now you are probably thinking - that's enough! But no they want more...

I visit the gnu philosophy pages regularly so I'll skip to the
responses: just off the top of my head ...
------------------------------

 
>   * Excerpt: Richard Stallman started the FSF in order to promote
> open source software like the Linux operating system, as an
> alternative to expensive software like Windows.

RMS started the FSF in order to promote *free software*, a philosophical
and social movement based around the idea that computer software needs
to be liberated. A side effect of this is that much free software is
also available at low or no cost, but this is not a goal. The goal is
freedom.

Another side effect of implementing the four freedoms is a development
model (one of many around free software) in which many programmers work
to modify code in their free time. This is the development model of the
linux kernel project. The Open Source Initiative was founded to promote
the model to businesses - the idea being that businesses can improve
their bottom line by leveraging the free software communities
willingness to help each other.

John M Walker has a neat description here:
http://ostatic.com/blog/the-great-software-freedom-debate-part-368
... which is a nice supplement to the usual gnu philosophy references.

>     * Excerpt: Now with cloud computing and web-based applications,
> even Linux users can use the same software as everyone else, through
> their browsers. With other popular programs like Skype and Adobe Flash
> producing Linux versions, the Linux desktop may finally be catching
> on!

"Catching on" to what, exactly?

Linus Torvalds may be happy with increased popularity for linux but this
is not a *free software* ideal - we consider this a low bar for success.
Far better, lets measure success in terms of how much freer we are
afterwards.

Proprietary applications running on GNU/Linux machines, either on the
"desktop" or as an application in your browser, are still proprietary
and still suffer all the same problems.

It has also been possible to make modified versions of free software
de-facto proprietary by only offering them as a service over a network.
In this way, code can be removed from the community. This is not good.

Fortunately it is possible to liberate software even for access over a
network.


>    * Excerpt: When combined with the other chapters that include
> statutory damages, search and seizure powers for border guards,
> anti-camcording rules, and mandatory disclosure of personal
> information requirements, it is clear that there is no bigger
> intellectual property issue today than the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
> Agreement being negotiated behind closed doors this week in Korea.

In general we like to avoid the propaganda term "Intellectual Property"
in discussions surrounding copyright, patents, and trade marks. Since
ACTA is a secret deal, it is not clear what it is supposed to entail and
labeling the proceeding under the "intellectual property" umbrella adds
nothing of substance to the debate and speculation.

Issues concerning the concept of ownership as it applies to creative
works are not new and they are well documented. ACTA is likely more of a
direct threat to civil liberties (creating a culture of suspicion and
distrust) and sovereignty (US likes to push its laws onto other nations
- here we call this "colonialism").

Media and software giants have not been adverse to using contract law,
for example, to remove their customers rights. It would not be
surprising if we discovered that some parties are trying to get the
definition of counterfeiting under the agreement to include copying a
DVD or a painting or a book or whatever - for sale as the original.
This, if successful, could create a whole new class of
"protection" (read: restrictions) for digital media and software
alongside those already in place.

At the moment we have a bunch of alleged leaks, which may or may not be
politicians testing the waters, and a lot of speculation. The final
agreement will need careful and open study before it can be adopted ...
but that is the same for any international trade agreement.

We do not know how much opportunity there may be for this - is NZ we
have learned the hard way about bills being rushed into law under shady
circumstances. It is important to signal our displeasure about what we
have heard about acta *now*, so maybe our elected representatives will
think about how much they enjoy their reputations before passing
anything.

--------------

I do not "follow" all that many blogs specifically but I have a wide
ranging attention where software freedom is concerned and regularly
trawl the Internet for attention-grabbing snippets. I think my most
visited would be:

Schneier on Security -not exactly software oriented but you have to
watch closely.

NZ Political party blogs for the technology and economic development
portfolios.

CreativeFreedom.org - NZ artists were also concerned about the draconian
laws being passed in their name.

NZOSS - New Zealand Free Software Society (the founders have misspelled
"Free" in the acronym.)

I have been hosting my own Blog at www.hbclinux.net.nz/blog.html ... but
recent developments have me experimenting with blogspot. That would be
simonbjournal.blogspot.com

I followed badvista and still watch defective by design, and have
contributed suggestions to windows 7 sins ... and artwork.

That should do the trick.
How did I do? <sits up>















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