All,
Representing only my personal opinion, I sent the following email to RTE following their inclusion of the Vista release on the main evening news at 9o'clock. As yet, I don't know (because I didn't see) if the request to cut the item from subsequent broadcasts was done (offhand I'd suspect not). But I felt that without representing any organisation, I should make the point I made, knowing what I know.
As I write, two days later, there has been no response other than the scrap I've attached below, but I think it's important that we challenge the sources of [mis]information, ideally collectively. Going to be biased here and ask, did they cover gNewSense? Opensoursing of Solaris? Software Patents? Anything else we stand for?
Maybe we need to be more aggressive as an organisation on this front, in the same way that Geldof challenged Governments and not individuals with Live8!!
Something to think about and possibly discuss.
Mel
OK - Here's what I sent on Wednesday... (from just myself)
Subject: Shame on RTE for promoting Windows Vista
Dear Sir/Madam,
It is bad enough that Microsoft have so corrupted the supply channels that vendors will not tell their customers about "free software", and as a result of their appalling products, spawned both the Anti-Virus and Anti-spyware industries, and yet, they have their predatory business practices advertised for free on the main evening news. Where was RTE news when the battle against Software Patents in Europe was in full swing? Where are RTE news now when Microsoft are attempting to fast-track their non-standard OO-XML through the international standards organisation vetting procedures? Microsoft lawyers are the best in the world, otherwise the company simply wouldn't exist, and have used their influence to corrupt and distort public opinion.
They don't need the help of RTE news. RTE news would serve it's viewers far better by visiting http://ifso.ie/ and listening to (in particular) the talks by Richard Stallman, and by educating themselves by viewing http://ffii.org/ in particular http://webshop.ffii.org/ - and subsequently cease and desist from advertising the arrival of new resource-hungry spyware. I hope there is somebody within your newsroom educated and competant enough in these matters to effect an immediate cessation to advertising this anti-consumer menace, preferably before the late-night news broadcasts.
Kind regards
Mel McWeeney
PS: If nobody still working in the studio is informed about these issues, please cut this item from subsequent news. And if still in doubt, search Google for the keywords "Microsoft FUD". My search, one minute ago revealed (on a standard Google Search: "Results 1 - 10 of about 1,410,000 for Microsoft FUD. (0.21 seconds)". I will leave you to work out what FUD stands for, but for many it's a real word. If almost 1.5 million posts have been made about an issue, the public should be told, or at least, the perpretrator not freely advertised!!
Subject: RE: Shame on RTE for promoting Windows Vista
From: "Complaints Review" <complaints.review(a)rte.ie>
Date: Wed, January 31, 2007 5:09 pm
To: "Mel McWeeney" <different email account>
Cc: "Newsdesk Account" <Newsdesk(a)rte.ie>
Priority: Normal
Options: View Full Header | View Printable Version | View Message details | View as HTML
Dear Mr McWeeney,
Your e-mail is being forwarded to the RTÉ Newsdesk for information.
With best regards
Nina Ward
RTÉ Information Officer
Hi guys. Today was a pretty exciting day for the FSFE Freedom Task
Force office. We just announced the release of the Fiduciary Licence
Agreement (FLA) under both the GFDL and CC by-sa.
The FLA is a copyright assignment that provides a really simple route to
making sure projects can maintain copyright coherency.
The FLA can be used to either assign copyright to the FSFE Fiduciary
Programme or to another party. It's designed to work in multiple legal
jurisdictions and to provide the closest thing we can get to a one-stop
copyright assignment.
The link to the webpage is: http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/fla/
Please tell projects you are involved with and let your friends know.
The official press release is below. If you have any questions you can
just email me :)
=======
FSFE releases solution to increase legal strength of Free Software projects
FSFE releasing the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation Licence (GFDL) and the
Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike (CC by-sa) licence.
The Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) is a copyright assignment
carefully crafted for the specific needs of Free Software projects to
bundle their copyright in a single organisation or person. This will
enable projects to ensure their legal maintainability, including
important issues such as preserving the ability to relicense and
certainty to have sufficient rights to enforce licences in court.
The FLA is a truly international copyright assignment working in both
copyright traditions that was written by Dr. Axel Metzger (ifrOSS) and
Georg Greve (FSFE) in consultation with renowned international legal
and technical experts. The latest revision was compiled by Georg Greve
and FSFE's FTF coordinator Shane M Coughlan based on feedback provided
by Dr. Lucie Guibault of the Institute for Information Law in the
Netherlands.
"The FLA has been carefully formulated to meet the legal requirements
of every country and it ensures that assignment or licence granted
has the same scope irrespective of the country in which it is signed,"
says Dr. Lucie Guibault. "This marks a clear step forward in
copyright assignment and offers real benefit to the Free Software
community."
There are two ways the FLA would be used: A project can apply to be
accepted into FSFE's Fiduciary Program, examples for this are
Bacula.org and OpenSwarm. This has the advantage that the work of
handling the legal issues and taking care of licence compliance will
be done by FSFE's Freedom Task Force and its large team of technical
and legal experts. This allows the project to focus on project
management and technical work.
The other usage would be to use the FLA and adapt it to assign the
rights to another organisation set up by the project team itself. This
organisation would then have to take care of the paperwork and licence
compliance work itself, but it would still benefit from the solidity
of the FLA for the gathering of rights and FSFE's Freedom Task Force
will be glad to provide insight and experience to such organisations.
"For us the most important issue is not whether projects assign their
copyright to FSFE or any other organisation. We just want to do our
part so projects do not neglect these issues," explains Georg Greve,
president of the FSFE. "Legal maintainability is a key issue for Free
Software adoption. We started the Freedom Task Force to help ensure
legal maintainability in practice as well as spread knowledge about
these issues. Our idea for a healthy Free Software eco-system is to
have a healthy and heterogenous infrastructure of organisations that
will cooperate with each other to support Free Software in this way."
Shane Coughan, coordinator of the Freedom Task Force adds: "Deciding
which approach is best for a project depends on many different
factors and always boils down to individual circumstances. Ideally,
organisations handling these issues should be non-profit and have
a clear primary focus on Free Software."
"When building such an organisation, it is also important that people
pay attention to the possibility of having to withstand organisational
attacks from the outside as well as legal battles in court. Not all
Free Software projects will want to adopt such hardened structures,
which might contradict their technical and project management
principles and structures," Mr Coughlan continues. "In that case, the
FLA allows FSFE to help safeguard the project in the legal sphere,
while maintaining the project's absolute independence in management
and project decisions."
Whichever way projects prefer, the Free Software Foundation Europe and
its Freedom Task Force will be happy to help projects adopt the
Fiduciary Licence Agreement.
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation
in the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these
issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving
people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
central issues of the FSFE.
--
Shane Coughlan
FTF Coordinator
Free Software Foundation Europe
Office: +41435000366 ext 408 / Mobile: +41792633406
coughlan(a)fsfeurope.org
Support Free Software > http://fsfe.org