Hi. Just wanted to let you know of a couple of things.
Tell me if this is off-topic.
1.- Hague convention.
http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/whatyoushouldknow.html
I've been sent this. It seems that they are planning an
agreement among 49 countries so that the jurisdictions are
blurred and software patents, reverse engineering
prohibitions, etc. legal in one country may be inforced in another.
2.- Spanish LSSI / European directive 2000/31
A proposed law in Spain (Ley de los Servicios de la
Sociedad de la Información, LSSI) would allow the goverment
to censor content in Internet (without asking a judge)
and require registration prior to publication,
forcing ISPs to keep historical logs and police the net.
At lest according to the analysis of some people this vulnerates
basic freedoms of speech, etc. This would
probably make it more difficult to publish anything on the
web, including free software. The uproar against this law
is more about freedom of speech than free software, but
free software is about freedom of speech, too.
I've heard that there are similar laws in France and Italy
(is this the same as the one forcing sottware distribution
media to bear goverment produced identification labels?).
They're all implementations of the 2000/31 directive, but
the Spanish LSSI seems to go much further than the directive
requires. Not that everybody likes the directive, either,
but I'm told it is somewhat less serious than the LSSI.
One of the groups against the proposed law is Kriptopolis:
http://www.kriptopolis.com/lssi/index.html
Others, like AI, propose modifications.
--
Xavier Drudis Ferran
xdrudis(a)tinet.org
Hi,
After contact with Bradley M. Kuhn and myself the lead of
phpgroupware is now using only php3 for development and the current
CVS tree has been fixed to be fully php3 compatible. I encoutered many
tiny problems last month when trying to use it. Those are now all
fixed and this opens a bright future for the use of phpgroupware as
a development base for a Savannah re-implementation.
Nothing more to say at that point but I wanted to keep you
updated on this.
Cheers,
--
Loic Dachary http://www.dachary.org/ loic(a)dachary.org
24 av Secretan http://www.senga.org/ loic(a)senga.org
75019 Paris Tel: 33 1 42 45 09 16 loic(a)gnu.org
GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt
Bradley M. Kuhn writes:
>
> Does FSF Europe collect these reports somewhere in a file, or savannah
> project ;)? I'd like find some volunteer, at year's end, to go through
> them, and write a summary in a page worth of text on "What FSF Europe did
> in 2001", so that we can put it in the FSF annual report. I think that's
> a great way to increase awareness about FSF Europe in the states, and
> strengthen our (already strong ;) affiliation with each other.
All the reports of this kind are in www.gnu.org/fsfe/fr/news/
or france.fsfeurope.org/news/, therefore they are in the
savannah.gnu.org/projects/fsfe and savannah.gnu.org/projects/www since
they both cover this part of the www.gnu.org CVS tree. They are
syndicated using an RSS file that is published on various news
channels. The idea is to also syndicate them in
www.fsfeurope.org/news/ as soon as someone takes some time to build
this directory.
> (If anyone would want to volunteer for that, they are welcome. ;)
Olivier Berger has been working on the news channel this week.
I added a task reminder for the annual report. What's the date of publication ?
When should the summary be ready ?
http://savannah.gnu.org/pm/task.php?func=detailtask&project_task_id=198&gro…
> loic(a)gnu.org <loic(a)gnu.org> wrote:
> > The FSF distribution office (DO) is located in Boston downtown,
>
> We actually have begun calling this the "FSF Main Offices" publicly. The
> offices got the name "DO" because the office was originally just for
> distributing magnetic tapes, CDs, t-shirts, and books.
So it would be MO for short, right ?-)
> Actually, there's new information on this front. I was told recently that
> an MIT subsidiary (or something like that) bought the building, and it
> won't be demolished. However, the CS department is still moving, which
> means RMS and the GNU offices there will probably move within the next
> five years.
RMS noticed this and I already fixed it on the online version.
> Noted elsewhere on this thread, Lisa is the "Business Manager", not
> "Account Manager".
I fixed this too.
> ...and sadly my brain's hard drive is usually thrashing, and it's hard to
> get real work done with all that swapping going on. ;)
:-)
>
> Actually, I was juggling at least 10 contexts that day in between calls.
> ;)
I replaced the figures with your estimations.
> > 16. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/bkuhn@gnu.org
>
> This link is dead.... What is it supposed to be?
Fixed, forgot mailto:.
> BTW, have you all set up some sort of software system for handling these
> reports.
Barely the XSLT/XHTML as every page on *.fsfeurope.org + lynx
--dump does the job.
Cheers,
--
Loic Dachary http://www.dachary.org/ loic(a)dachary.org
24 av Secretan http://www.senga.org/ loic(a)senga.org
75019 Paris Tel: 33 1 42 45 09 16 loic(a)gnu.org
GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt
Hello,
I noticed this press release [0] in the Swedish Presidency webpage entitled
"Breakthrough in the Patents Issue". It seems to be about the "Community
Patent" and doesn't mention anything about software patents, but I thought
you should be aware of it.
[0] http://www.eu2001.se/eu2001/news/news_read.asp?iInformationID=15512
--
Rúben Leote Mendes - ruben(a)nocturno.org
Hi,
This is the report I wrote on the plane back to France. It is
primarily targeted to friends and volunteers of the chapter france
but you may want to read it anyway.
Cheers,
http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/article2001-05-28-01.en.html
FSF, APRIL, FSF France and GNU working together
On May 21, 2001 [13]FSF France shipped me ([14]Lo�c Dachary) to
Boston. I was to install a new set of hardware for the [15]Savannah
development tool. In the plane back to Paris I realized that this
week was so intense that you'd probably like to share some bits of
it with me.
The FSF distribution office (DO) is located in Boston downtown,
near the park. I went there straight from the airport to check my
mail and meet with [16]Bradley M. Kuhn, [17]Lisa Goldstein and
[18]Brian Youmans who are working there to further Free Software
day after day. When I entered the 50 square meter room with my
knapsack, I also had the surprise to discover that [19]Janet Casey
was working here. For some reason I thought she was maintaining the
Free Software Directory from somewhere else. After a cheerful
greeting, I was able to connect and everybody went back to work.
Around 7pm [20]Richard M. Stallman came to pick me up with [21]Tom
Turner's car. We spent an entertaining 30 minutes to go to china
town and park. You have to realize that china town is 5 minutes
walk from the DO and you'll understand why it's customary for
people living in Boston to avoid using their car. That was about
the only time I was in a car, the subway was far more convenient.
After diner we drove back to the MIT AI Lab (tech square) and I was
able to connect and work some more. The MIT AI Lab is located in
the Laboratory of Computer Science, 545 Tech Square. For some
reason someone decided to renumber it to 200 Tech Square. When I
asked, Bradley told me that they will destroy the building and
relocate everyone in another one, currently in construction across
the street. One morning, coming from tech square I paused in front
of the sign advertising the new building. On the top left it reads,
yellow on blue : William H. Gates. I did not even ask for more
information, it just gave me the creeps and I headed for the DO,
two subway stations away.
While configuring the new machine at the DO, I was immersed in the
day to day activities of the FSF. Brian tirelessly ships and
receive books, mugs and t-shirts, using more space than anyone.
There were intense discussions about the new t-shirt based on the
[22]Nevrax Design Team drawing called the [23]floating gnu. Lisa
worked for the FSF in the early days (86), she came back a few
weeks ago after 8 years of vacations (;-) to be the Account
Manager. I was most impressed by her ability to write and speak
Chinese fluently. Beside the fact that it's a major advantage when
going out in china town, that will help setting up FSF China. Janet
quietly works on the Free Software Directory and I'm ashamed to say
that I did not spare an hour to talk with her about it. I guess
I'll have to come back next year then ;-) Bradley does the usual
thing a Vice President and a kernel do : switching context.
Although I did not count them, a wild guess would be that he
handles from 30 to 100 contexts a day. Well, except the day he
spent talking to journalists about RMS's talk to counter the Craig
Mundie statement.
On Friday evening Lisa used her skills to organize a diner in china
town to celebrate the existence of the FSF Europe. This tribute to
the FSF Europe from the FSF was materialized by a Chinese cake
reading Thanks FSF Europe in red letters. I was more moved that I'd
be willing to admit but I got over it by drinking half of the Veuve
Cliquot bottle. On behalf of the FSF Europe members and friends, I
extend my gratitude to all FSF members and friends. Let's unite and
make Free Software available to all. Hips.
Sunday night my work was over and I started to relax. I asked
[24]Roland McGrath for diner but he moved to California some time
(years ?) ago. Oh well. Then, at 3am, while exchanging email with
[25]Leonard H. Tower Jr. I realized that he was probably a few
blocs away. It was indeed the case and we met for lunch near tech
square. He shared some of his souvenirs of the early days when he
co-founded the Free Software Foundation with RMS.
Before leaving tech square to the airport Bradley introduced me to
Gary Sussman. Gary scared the shit out of me by explaining that the
copyright law is controlled by Disney, world wide. Since he is a
member of the FSF board I should better check this to find out if
he was kidding or not :-)
I was not here to investigate legal matters, though. I diverted
most of the subjects that popped in the conversations by sending
email or adding tasks to Savannah. I had to focus on the real work:
installing the new machine in the collocation space and migrate the
content of the old machine to the new. That may seem boring at
first but this is counting without [26]Joel N. Weber II and
[27]Mark H. Weaver.
Replacing the machine used by the GNU project for [28]CVS and the
[29]Savannah development tool became necessary when RMS agreed that
it should welcome all Free Software projects that needed it, not
just the GNU packages. The PII300 with 128Mb of RAM and 5Gb of disk
had to be replaced. FSF France and APRIL called for donations and
found 40 000 FF for this purpose in two weeks time. While gathering
money I virtually shopped for hardware under the direction of Joel
who already had a precise idea of what was needed. The new machine
is a brand new dual PIII 800 with 1GB of ECC RAM and 90Gb of disk.
As always, it was not as simple as one would expect. Joel has an
excellent contact with Barton Bruce, Vice President of Global Naps,
a major provider of the Boston area. Global Naps is already
providing the T1 to the DO and extended this offer to host machines
of the GNU project in their main collocation building. The new
Savannah machine was the opportunity to take advantage of this
offer but it required a switch, a UPS and a terminal controller in
addition to the machine.
We ended up finding all those for a total of 37 000 FF which is a
really good deal knowing that all hardware is new and has all the
features a system administrator need to manage hardware in a
collocation space. Part of this low price must be credited to Larry
Augustin who gave us a special price break of 20% on the VA 2230 we
chose to buy. Another part comes from Joel who provided an old
desktop to act as the terminal controller.
You see, Joel has this interesting theory that an old machine that
does mostly nothing is perfectly fit for the job of controlling
serial ports. Someone has still to prove him wrong on that subject.
In addition a machine with a full fledged Free Software operating
system has encryption and this is something no specialized terminal
controller hardware cares to provides. That is surprising
considering that the terminal controller allows you to watch the
machines consoles and remotely power cycle them. In most cases you
can even interact with the bios at boot time.
Before this week I was not really convinced that a terminal control
was mandatory when installing a machine at a collocation space.
After spending a few days rebooting and crashing the machine
installed a few miles away, I could not turn back. This is not only
something you need for emergency situations, it's something you
need to install or upgrade the machine. It saves a lot of stress.
Also Bradley spared half an hour to install grub and teach me the
basics. I'm converted. Mark was my co-worker to plan the actual
migration once the hardware was setup. We agreed that we should
keep it as simple as possible. Mark designed a migration plan based
on rsync. The idea was simple: copy all the file systems, replace
the kernel, reboot and switch the DNS names. The actual migration
plan takes about one page and turned out to be that simple. We did
a hardware upgrade and kept the software installation untouched.
On Thursday Joel drove his truck to the DO where Mark and I waited
a good half an hour on the pavement with the equipment. It took us
another hour to drive the four miles to Quincy where Global Naps
have their collocation space. Barton Bruce was expecting us and we
went right to the fourth floor with all the packets. At this point
the game was to mount the hardware in racks that look like aluminum
ladders instead of the usual file cabinets. Barton, Joel and Mark
had fun trying to guess the center of mass of each equipment. After
a short stop to the fridge, Barton granted us a tour of the
building. Global Naps is an open collocation space where each
client is invited not to mess with other people hardware unless he
has the desire to see his own drop of the roof. Barton told us that
this is literally written down on the contracts and actually
happened once in the past six years.
At the end of the day the machine was online and I had two more
days to prepare for the actual switch-over. After Joel fixed a
minor problem with the kernel of the terminal controller taking a
good half of the 8MB of available RAM, I happily rebooted and
tested the new machine from tech square. I had to recompile the
kernel to increase the maximum number of groups per process. When
booting this new kernel on the exact rsync'd copy of the file
systems of the old machine, I merely had to change a few
configuration files to get it working properly.
During a good 8 hours on Saturday I exercised the migration many
times, running rsync to keep up to date with the old machine,
rebooting, testing all the services. At the same time Joel
decreased the TTL of the gnu.org zone to minimize the propagation
delay. The day before, I sent a warning to the 700 users of the
machine, advertising the switch-over for Sunday morning. And indeed
I was able to switch-over as planned. Being extra careful and
double checking every bit, the down-time was around 40 minutes.
Half an hour later everything was routed to the new machine.
This was the conclusion of a successful, 100% cooperative project
involving FSF, APRIL, FSF France and GNU. It went more smoothly
than most similar projects I experienced. It also involved a lot of
knowledgeable people than no company could afford to get to work
together. As a conclusion I would just like to thank all of them:
Barton Bruce, Joel N. Weber II, Mark H. Weaver, Bradley M. Kuhn,
Richard M. Stallman, Brian Youmans, Philippe Gerum, Juliette
Bertho, Larry Augustin, Didier Guyomarch, Rodolphe Quiedeville,
Cyril Bouthors.
References
1. http://www.fsfeurope.org/
2. http://www.fsf.org/
3. http://www.gnu.org/
4. http://es.gnu.org/
5. http://www.april.org/index.html.en
6. http://www.ofset.org/
7. http://www.lsfn.org/
8. http://france.fsfeurope.org/index.en.html
9. http://france.fsfeurope.org/index.en.html
10. http://france.fsfeurope.org/index.en.html
11. http://www.fsfeurope.org/
12. http://www.fsf.org/home.html
13. http://france.fsfeurope.org/
14. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/loic@gnu.org
15. http://savannah.gnu.org/
16. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/bkuhn@gnu.org
17. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/lisa@gnu.org
18. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/3diff@gnu.org
19. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/jcasey@gnu.org
20. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/rms@gnu.org
21. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/tom@gnu.org
22. http://www.nevrax.org/
23. http://www.gnu.org/graphics/meditate.html
24. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/roland@gnu.org
25. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/tower@ai.mit.edu
26. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/devnull@gnu.org
27. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/mhw@gnu.org
28. http://subversions.gnu.org/
29. http://savannah.gnu.org/
30. mailto:LoicDachary@fsfeurope.org
31. http://france.fsfeurope.org/gpl/gpl.en.html
32. http://france.fsfeurope.org/libre.en.html
33. http://france.fsfeurope.org/philosophy/philosophy.en.html
34. http://agenda.lolix.org/
35. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/news.en.html
36. http://france.fsfeurope.org/events/events.en.html
37. http://savannah.gnu.org/pm/task.php?group_project_id=37&group_id=53&func=br…
38. http://www.gnu.org/jobs/jobsFR.fr.html
39. http://france.fsfeurope.org/press/press.fr.html
40. http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-france
41. http://france.fsfeurope.org/donations/donations.en.html
42. http://france.fsfeurope.org/about/about.en.html
43. http://france.fsfeurope.org/contact.en.html
44. http://france.fsfeurope.org/thanks.fr.html
45. http://france.fsfeurope.org/stats/stats.fr.html
46. http://france.fsfeurope.org/server/server.en.html
47. http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/fsffr/
48. http://france.fsfeurope.org/birth/birth.en.html
49. http://france.fsfeurope.org/server/server.en.html#Web
50. http://www.gnu.org/server/standards/
51. http://france.fsfeurope.org/boilerplate.fr.html
52. http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/web
53. http://france.fsfeurope.org/news/article2001-05-28-01.en.xhtml
54. http://france.fsfeurope.org/fsfe-fr.xsl
55. http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/fsfe/fr/news/article2001-05-28-01.e…
56. mailto:webmaster@fsfeurope.org
--
Loic Dachary http://www.dachary.org/ loic(a)dachary.org
24 av Secretan http://www.senga.org/ loic(a)senga.org
75019 Paris Tel: 33 1 42 45 09 16 loic(a)gnu.org
GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt
Lutz Horn wrote:
>"The software of this project is released under the GNU GPL but before
>you can download a copy you additionaly have to agree to so called
>'Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen (AGB)' which on the project site is
>translated as 'general terms of business'."
The AGBs are important due to the German law. They explain among other
how to interprete the GPL under the German law. This is because there
exists no translation of the GPL and because the American and German
law differ in
e.g. in terms of the copyright law.
Detail information can be found here:
http://www.ifross.de/ifross_html/publikation.html
article: 10. Open Source Software and German Copyright Law
more information (German only) is available -on:
http://www.campussource.de/opensource/docu_opensource/cs_siepmann1.pdfhttp://www.ifross.de/ifross_html/publikation.html articles: 1-9
ILIAS is part of CampusSource (http://www.campussource.org/). CampusSource
provides open source infrastructure software for the use of new
media for teaching
and learning at universities. The initiative decided for the GPL,
but had to face the
problem of the different laws. The server is operated in the
CampusSource office and as
the office we have to put up the AGBs. At the moment, we are
translating the ABGs into English and it will soon be available.
Lutz Horn wrote:
>"The licensee is obligated to carefully keep his password for the
> download area [of the web site] and not to disclose it to third
> parties. The licensee is liable for any damage which rise from a
> violation of this obligation of carefulnes."
>So why this sentence? What if I download the software and immediatly
> put it on my own web site for download without the need for
> registration? Even though I don't disclose my password, I make
> available all the additional information I got from registering at
> the original web site. The licenser could interpred this as a
> violation of the obligation quoted above.
We, as the people being responsible for our server, have to make
sure that everybody who downloads the software from our server has
accepted the AGB (our layer said).
Third people, who accepted the AGBs, downloaded the software and who
want to distribute the software themselves are only required to
distribute the software under the GPL.
> 3. Under '5. Schutzrechte Dritter' the licenser states that according to
> his knowledge the software does not violate the rights of any third
> parties (in Germany). To keep it that way the licensse is obligated
> to (and again, my poor translation):
>
> "not use the software for himself or under order of third parties for
> the purpose of searching for violation of third party rights",
>
> "immediatly inform the licenser if third parties claim any rights",
>
> "if the licensee has the imperssion that the software violates third
> party rights he is obligated to immediatly inform the licenser in
> written form about this violation including a detailed description of
> the act of violation. It is disallowed to the licensee to inform any
> other natural of legal entities without written permission of the
> licenser (about the violation of third party rights)."
>
> "If any of the about obligations ('Nebenpflichten') is violated the
> licensee takes the obligation to pay compensation to the licenser for
> all damage done by the violation."
According to our layer this has to be there to prevent that people try to make
money by purposefully looking for violations.
Reinhard Mueller wrote
>One additional problem I see is: Will these AGBs be valid for people
>that get this software from somewhere else? They will probably never
>have seen them...
they are not valid for for people who get this software from somewhere else
--
mit freundlichen Grüßen
Sonja Branskat
Sonja Branskat
Geschäftsstelle CampusSource
c/o FernUniversität Hagen
Feithstr. 142
58084 Hagen
email: sonja.branskat(a)campussource.de
Telefon: (+49) 02331 987 4258
Telefax: (+49) 02331 987 317
[English version below]
Bonjour,
J'ai appris que le processus d'élection au sein de la société
Liberty Surf utilisant un logiciel permettant de voter en ligne avait
été refusé par les syndicats.
Je ne connais pas la raison de ce refus et je regrette que vos
efforts pour mettre cela en place soient perdus. Je tiens cependant à
porter à votre connaissance qu'il est impossible d'assurer la
transparence du processus électoral sur la base d'un logiciel
propriétaire. Seul un Logiciel Libre (distribué sous une licence
garantissant quatre libertés fondamentales, voir
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.fr.html) peut garantir cette
transparence.
Il existe aussi d'autres facteurs, indépendants du logiciel,
qui doivent être pris en compte pour que l'intégralité du processus
démocratique soit transparent et juste (cryptage et authentification
par exemple). C'est un sujet vaste sur lequel n'existe pas encore de
consensus.
Si vous souhaitez discuter plus avant de ces points, je
vous invite à le faire en anglais afin que des personnes se trouvant
dans d'autre pays d'Europe puissent participer. Si l'anglais est un
problème, nous pouvons continuer en français.
Cordialement,
[English version]
I heard that the electoral process internal to Liberty Surf and
involving a software for online vote was refused by the syndicates.
I'm not aware of the exact reasons of this refusal and I regret
that your efforts to organize this are lost. However, I would like to
inform you that it is impossible to ensure a transparent voting process
based on a proprietary software. Only a Free Software (distributed under
a license that guarantees four fundamental freedoms, see
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) can guarantee this
transparency.
There are other factors, not related to software, that must be
taken in account in order to ensure that the democratic process is
transparent and fair (cryptography and authentification for
instance). It's a vast subject and no consensus was found at present.
If you would like to discuss this subject, I invite you to do
so in English so that people in other European countries can participate.
If English is a problem, we can continue in French.
Sincerly,
--
Loic Dachary http://www.dachary.org/ loic(a)dachary.org
24 av Secretan http://www.senga.org/ loic(a)senga.org
75019 Paris Tel: 33 1 42 45 09 16 loic(a)gnu.org
GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt