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Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action.
From: |
Russell McOrmond |
Subject: |
Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action. |
Date: |
Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:24:07 -0500 |
User-agent: |
Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 (X11/20080226) |
Fran?cois Gagnon wrote:
BTW: This end says that your name is encoded in ISO-8859-1, but that
character isn't coming out. Any chance that you sent the character in
UTF8 and thus things aren't matching up?
I'm hoping the following will be a start of a flood of responses to
this call for action.
And tell us how you are willing to participate. Don't be shy : Everybody
here has a job/a main ooccupation and therefore cannot care about this
24/7.
I can say what I'm already doing, and from that it should be obvious
what I could do for an FSF.
I'm the host for http://digital-copyright.ca , co-coordinator of
http://GOSLINGcommunity.org and policy coordinator for
http://CLUEcan.ca . I'm a self-employed business person
http://flora.ca who focuses on FLOSS consulting (which translates to
primarily system administration and hacking on Web apps -- customers
want me to do LAMP).
My interest is on the policy side of things, specifically how the
government regulates the software industry.
The FSF is increasingly branching out into campaigns
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/ . The two top of these (Defective by
Design and EndSoftPatents.org ) have a different stragegy and background
in Canada than in the USA. How to keep legal protection for "DRM" out
of Canada (We haven't yet ratified the 1996 WIPO treaties) is very
different than how to get current legal protection for "DRM" out of the
USA. The same for software patents: software patents were granted by
specialized pro-patent courts in the USA, not something passed by their
elected officials. In Canada it is only an interpretation by CIPO
(Canadian Intellectual Property Office) in their Manual of Patent Office
Practices
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/patents/mopop/mopop-e.html , and
not something that has ever been declared by a court or by parliament
(IE: it is current practice, not law - more at
http://www.flora.ca/patent2003/).
I suggest questions that would be important to answer, as a group.
- What do you think should the FSF-C's first mission? first priority?
charity status?
Charity status is what has held things up so far, and I hope we can
just skip that. While it would bring in more money quickly, I think we
should build before we expect people to come with cash.
There is so much we could do without charitable status, both on
fundraising and volunteer recruitment.
I think my choice for priorities of short-term mission is obvious:
Create a Canadian flavor of the existing FSF campaigns.
And I don't just mean the two above, but also work with CIPIC on the
"RIAA Expert Witness Fund" which would become the "CRIA Expert Witness
Fund", etc. CRIA has thus far claimed they won't sue in Canada
(because they don't want to confuse politicians with the fact that the
laws are already in place to allow them to sue), but if the politics of
the day keep the Copyright bill delayed, they may change this very
quickly and use the blueprint the FC and FCA gave them.
- What do you think should we keep away from?
We should obviously avoid overlap with other groups, both
domestically and internationally. We should try to work with groups,
partner, etc.
For instance, there are things that are best done under the name of
the FSF, and then there will be things that FSF.ca can do jointly with
CLUEcan.ca and GOSLINGcommunity.org.
There are also projects like http://softwareinnovation.ca/ which we
should be trying to promote increased membership in, without necessarily
needing to have the word "Free Software" there.
One thing I would love to avoid is ongoing debates about language:
GNU/Linux, Free Software vs Open Source, etc.
I may be part of the "Free Software" movement, and not feel affinity
with the term "Open Source", but I try hard to avoid that becoming a big
topic of discussion/debate. People who use "Linux" eventually hear
about Open Source. People who think of themselves as part of the "Open
Source" movement eventually recognize over the long term politics is
also practical and move closer to "Free Software". Beating people
over the head early may drive them to the closed DRM world of Apple.
- How do you think should we externally organize the FSF-C? with the
FSF? with already existing groups?
I have sent a message to the main contact address for FSF with the
hopes that someone from the main group will join this list and help us
understand the options.
I was told in the past that without charitable status that having an
FSF Canada didn't make sense, and people should just join the main FSF.
I think the very US-law-centric nature of the campaigns indicates that
this isn't working out, and we need a way for Canadian Free Software
activists to work on Canadian campaigns.
- How do you think should we internally organize the FSF-C?
I think this partly depends on what the FSF says, and also on what
resources (human and money) that we have.
- Moreover, what can we concretely do for the cause of software freedom?
See above ;-)
--
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/
"The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
portable media player from my cold dead hands!"
- [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action., Fran?cois Gagnon, 2008/03/03
- Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action.,
Russell McOrmond <=
- Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action., Blaise Alleyne, 2008/03/05
- Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action., David Henry, 2008/03/05
- Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action., Reid Ellis, 2008/03/05
- Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action., Mirko Lindner, 2008/03/06
- Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action., David Henry, 2008/03/06
- Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action., Russell McOrmond, 2008/03/08
- Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action., David Henry, 2008/03/09
- Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action., David Henry, 2008/03/06
Re: [fsfc-discuss] FSF Canada - Call for action., Russell McOrmond, 2008/03/08