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Lock out hackers (?)
by Vauxall De Roche 31 Aug '05

31 Aug '05

Hi folks, below is the email I've sent to the British magazine "Linux Format". I think the content is self explanatory. Any comments and ideas are welcome. Vauxall ----Messaggio originale---- Da: vauxall(a)virgilio.it Data: 31-ago-2005 1.36 PM A: <lxf.letters@futurenet. co.uk> Ogg: Lock out hackers Dear Sirs, I wish to inform you that you've just lost a reader. Your cover title "Lock out hackers" simply disgusts me. The deliberate misuse of the term "hacker" (see: <http://www.catb. org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is> ) is not tolerable on a Linux magazine. If it wasn't for the "hackers", you wouldn't be there making money out of free software. Dumbing down 35+ years of Unix culture is not the way to make people switch to Linux, rather it'll give them the impression that it's all about making a cheap and nasty copy of Microsoft Windows. Shame! Vauxall de roche

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about free software
by Markus 26 Aug '05

26 Aug '05

Hy! i hope i don't bore you, but i have some additional questions to my previous topic "why free". First let me say, that since the last linuxtag i have this great "Free Software - Free Society" t-shirt from the FSFE. Now after i have wear it the last few weaks people often ask me what it means and what the FSF-Europe is. And i have some problem to explain it to normal people. About the FSFE i usually say that it's a organisation which takes care about all aspects of freedom in the digital age, mostly software freedom. I think this is a short and clear statement. Than it comes to Free Software, ok i can explain clear and short what Free Software is with the 4 freedoms. But than mostly it comes the question why is it important and the assumption that it will never work for all areas were software is used. Here i need your help and some short and clear explanations, because i'm struggling if i try to explain it. Here the three main arguments were i have problems to find the right answere: 1. "Why does i need this freedoms? I have used software for many years and had never the need or idea to modify the software, the software just does the job and thats ok." If i point him to the freedom to share the software with their friend than i just get the answere that he just do it whether the license allows it or not. So he just don't care if it's legal or not. 2. "What is if there is no Free Software who does the job i have to do? Sould i don't do the job with my PC just because the licence of a program is non-free?" I think that's the typical argument of a pragmatist. 3. This is the economy argument. That there is some kind of software who just no one write in the spare time. Either because there is not much personal need for it or because if you don't work in this special area you don't know what exactly is needed. The argument is that for this kind of software you need a company who write it and it's cheaper for the particular customer if the company uses a non-free license and distribute the costs on all costumers than one customer have to order a "special-development" and have to pay the whole development costs. What would you answere to such statements? Than i have one more question from the "Free Music License" and GFDL dicussion. It seams that some people accept different kind of freedom for software, technical documentation, privat thoughts, musik,.. But if you make all this distinctions, could you partition the software field too? For example a distinction between functionally software and entertainment software like computer games. Do you think it would be acceptable for entertainment software to just keep the freedom to share the software verbatim with your friend but give the game vendor a monopoly for some time to sell the software? If some people accept this for music with the argument "it's just entertainment", than i think it would be acceptable for computer games and maybe other not that functional and "important for the world" software too. Thanks! Markus -- Lust, ein paar Euro nebenbei zu verdienen? Ohne Kosten, ohne Risiko! Satte Provisionen f�r GMX Partner: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/partner

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Free Music License?
by Roland Häder 25 Aug '05

25 Aug '05

Hello GNU folks, this idea came to me when I was listening to the background music of a small game called "Trackball": What abount a license which gurantees that also the music made for a software project - GNU GPL'ed or compatible, of course -is *free*? I mean, we already a license for software (GNU GPL) and also for documentation (FDL) but no license for music (FML = Free Music License?). But you cannot compare music with software nor documentation. Music is different to them. Just an idea... Regards, Roland Haeder

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Music for free software
by Andres K. Foerster 23 Aug '05

23 Aug '05

Hello, I've seen you dicussing about licensing music. So I want to raise a new topic. Are there musicians on this list? How about making music to advertise free software? There are already a few examples, but only few. If you need inspiration have a look there: http://gnu.mirror.xaranet.de/fun/humor.html#Music Well, the songs of the OpenBSD project do not always reflect the opinions of the FSF, the latest is even oposed to the FSF. But still I think they are good examples for free software advertising songs: http://openbsd.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/lyrics.html Of course songs for free software should also be freely available. The song "Follow the GNU" by Void Main would be a good example, if it only was freely available. The band wanted to make it free, but they were bound by their contract. That's another big obstacle. As far as I know, musicians who have a contract with the GEMA cannot make free music anymore. I think a contract with the GEMA eeven covers songs written before the signing. -- AKFoerster

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JPO Commissioner In Bribery/Slush Fund Scandal
by Seth Johnson 18 Aug '05

18 Aug '05

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: JPO Commissioner named in bribery/slush fund scandal Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:14:53 -0400 From: Alan <aengel(a)paterra.com> To: epo(a)mlist.austria.eu.net, PIUG-L(a)derwent.co.uk The August 4 issue of the Asahi Shimbun reports that JPO Commissioner Ogawa has been named in a growing METI slush fund scandal relating to contracts for external studies and reports. The article reports that Ogawa received 715,000 yen from the slush fund in November 1996. Ogawa checked into a local hospital immediately after the slush fund scandal broke. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was distributed by the EPO mailing list. Information on how to leave this mailinglist can be found at: http://www.european-patent-office.org/mail.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Free Music License #2
by Roland Häder 14 Aug '05

14 Aug '05

Hello again, I have just entered these words in Google and I found something interesting: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Free+Music+License%22&btnG=Google-S… Regards, Roland Haeder

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THOUGHT THIEVE$ short film showcase: Call for work
by MJ Ray 11 Aug '05

11 Aug '05

Via CRIS Info: > Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 14:31:58 -0500 > From: Sasha Costanza-Chock <schock(a)riseup.net> [...] > THOUGHT THIEVE$ is a short film showcase about corporate appropriation > of knowledge, culture, and creativity. It is a grassroots response to > the Micro$oft propaganda competition of the same name [see > http://www.msn.co.uk/thoughtthieves/Default.asp]. [...] > Send us your short film on corporate piracy by Friday, 16th September, > 2005 for your chance [...] > Also, we could all win a limitless supply of cutting-edge Free Software; > tons of Public Domain, Fair Use, Creative Commons, and Copyleft content > to use as source material; non-Genetically Modified food; affordable > generic medicines ... and lots of other cool stuff TBA. > > DEADLINE: Submissions are due by 16th September, 2005. > > MORE INFO: HTTP://WWW.THOUGHT-THIEVES.ORG Not sure about the $ing, but seems a good idea. Anyone going for it? -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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illegal? one installer for two differently licensed programs
by Immanuel Witschi 09 Aug '05

09 Aug '05

Hi I need clarification on a typical license issue since the quoted dialogue is in german I try to translate it below: the question is the following: assume OpenOffice.org is in a folder A on a CD and a localized thesaurus-dictionary or hyphenation-dictionary is in a folder B on the same CD and the licences are different from each other. Is it allowed to write an installer which takes first automatically OOo and installs it, and then takes the dictionary and installs it upon OOo? thesis: if NO, it wouldn't be legal even having these packages next to each other on the CD? Thank you Immanuel ------------------------------ GERMAN TEXT >>doof gefragt, kann ich nicht alles zusammenbauen und einfach eine >>Lizenz nach der anderen mit Mausklick bejahen? die Quellen bleiben ja >>separat. > nein .. eben nicht bei der GPL. Verwendest du in einem Paket einen > Anteil, der unter GPL fällt, muss das gesamte Paket unter GPL > weitergegeben werden. Das ist rechtlich mit OOo zwar möglich, abe rin > der Anwendung etwas kompliziert ok > (und eben genau der Grund, warum die > meisten Wörterbücher extra installiert werden müssen :-( ). Also da wir ständig dieses Argument haben, wo scheinbar niemand nachfragt, frage ich jetzt mal konkret: Auf einer CD ist das OpenOfficepaket in Ordner A. In Ordner B befindet sich das Offline-Sprachpaket. Jetzt kann ich einen Installer basteln der Beides im einem Rutsch nacheinander installiert. (Niemals war das Sprachpaket in den OOo-Dateien dazu integriert.) Ich sehe wenn ich einen Installer selbst bastele auch nicht mal die Notwendigkeit Dialoge anzuzeigen was gerade passiert, noch muß ich Lizenzen abnicken lassen. Die Lizenzen müssen weitergegeben werden, nicht mehr. Das ist doch wohl zutreffend, oder? Sollte das nicht gehen ist jeder Datenträger auf dem sich OOo und Sprachdateien gleichzeitig befinden lizenzwidrig. ---------------------------------

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FSF Europe Newsletter
by Free Software Foundation Europe 06 Aug '05

06 Aug '05

1. European Parliament rejects software patent directive 2. Svenska Linuxföreningen's yearly meeting 3. Summer School on Libre Software in Castellón 4. Jornades de Programari Lliure in Vilanova i la Geltrú 5. Third inter-sessional WIPO meeting in Geneve 6. FSFE at What The Hack 7. Expanding the network of Free Software organisations 1. European Parliament rejects software patent directive After years of struggle, the European Parliament ultimately rejected the software patent directive with 648 of 680 votes, sending a strong signal against patents on software logic and ideas. The Free Software community should not turn its back on the issue now: the forces that were pushing for software patentability will not give up. That is why FSFE and its associates are preparing for the next round in Europe and the FSFE is taking this struggle to the global level at the United Nations: We will need your help and support for that work! Please check out http://fsfeurope.org/help/help.en.html to find out what you can do. 2. Svenska Linuxföreningen's yearly meeting Svenska Linuxföreningen (the Swedish linux society) had its yearly meeting on 2 and 3 July. On the second day, Henrik Sandklef held a speech titled "Free Software - Free Society". 3. Summer School on Libre Software in Castellón At a summer school event at the University Jaume I in Castellón, Spain, Jonas Öberg was invited to present the work of the FSFE. 4. Jornades de Programari Lliure in Vilanova i la Geltrú "Jornades de Programari Lliure" ("Free Software days") is a Free Software conference in Vilanova i la Geltrú, Catalonia, organised by a group of Catalonian Free Software enthusiasts. Karin Kosina gave an introduction to 3D programming with Coin3D and held a speech about making money with Free Software. 5. Third inter-sessional WIPO meeting in Geneva Once again, Georg Greve and Karsten Gerloff found themselves in Geneva, Switzerland, to participate in the third Inter-Sessional, Inter-Governmental Meeting (IIM/3) on a Development Agenda for WIPO, the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organisation. In his capacity as co-chair of the WSIS Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks (PCT) Working Group of Civil Society and on behalf of this global working group, Georg Greve urged the WIPO to establish clear limits of patentability on a global scale, excluding areas such as software. http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/statement-20050721.en.html Again, Karsten's blog is one of the few independent sources of information about what's going on in these meetings, and Karsten is facing more and more attacks from representatives of the rightsholding industry for his unmasking and pointed comments. http://www.fsfe.org/Members/gerloff/blog/weblog_view 6. FSFE at What The Hack Every four years, hackers from across the world come together to camp, socialise, talk about technology and philosophy -- and fend off the rain. This year's What The Hack conference/event near Liempde in The Netherlands remained true to that tradition. For the first time, FSFE was present at one of these events, with Georg Greve speaking on the political aspects of Free Software and the work of FSFE, and Karsten Gerloff explaining the work of FSFE at the WIPO. 7. Expanding the network of Free Software organisations Building on the contacts made in Syria by Karin Kosina and Jonas Öberg, Mohammad Khansari joined the FSFE team at this year's GNU/LinuxTag in Karlsruhe. In personal discussions, Georg Greve and Mohammad Khansari agreed to sign a cooperation agreement between Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and Teheran's Advanced Information and Communication Technology Centre (AICTC) to promote Free Software awareness in the Middle East. FSFE hopes that many more cooperations and partnerships will be formed and is looking forward to supporting this process in any way it can. You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html

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Key escrow in the UK
by Jeremiah Foster 02 Aug '05

02 Aug '05

After the terrible, cowardly acts by terrorists in the UK, something that we all deplore, there has come the request from the Police to escrow the private keys used in dual key encryption. Apparently, much of the information held on the computers that the Police seized were encrypted, frustrating Police efforts to easily read that information. Now there are public calls by the Police to allow them to engage in key escrow so that when they have to break into a computer they have the private key and do not have to use brute force or whatever method they currently use, (is there any other method?) I would like to discuss this with the membership of this list and fellows at the FSFE. Is it permissible to allow key escrow by the authorities? Is this type of encryption too powerful to be in the hands of enemies of the state who take innocent lives? What are the limits on privacy? On public authorities invasion of privacy? How can we address the public need for information with the private need for privacy? Jeremiah Foster http://www.devmodul.com jeremiah.foster(a)devmodul.com Tel/Mobil: +46 (0)730 930 506

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