PROTESTERS PROVIDE A NASTY "VISTA" FOR GATES - Hazmat Suits Greet
Microsoft Developers As They Gather For Annual Conference
----Seattle, May 23, 2006
As Microsoft developers gathered in Seattle to hear Bill Gates's keynote
speech on the future of Microsoft and the coming release of its updated
operating system Vista, protesters wearing bright yellow Hazmat suits
swarmed the entrance of the city's convention center, delivering an
unsettling message to the corporation: your product is defective and
hazardous to users.
The surprise protest marked the launch of DefectiveByDesign.org, a
direct-action campaign that will target Big Media and corporations
peddling Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). "Flash protests, direct
actions, and practical ways that people can get involved and help stop
the stupidity of DRM," is how campaign manager Gregory Heller described
the grassroots effort.
An initiative of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Defective By
Design is urging all technologists to get involved at the start of the
campaign. "Technologists are very aware of the dangers of DRM," said
Peter Brown, Executive Director of the FSF. "We see this as the tip of
the iceberg and it is our duty to do something about it." The tech
community is uniquely qualified to lead this effort, in Brown's view.
"We know about the collusion of Big Media, device manufacturers and
proprietary software companies to lock us down," he continued. "Their
aim is to put Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into all our
computers and homes".
Brown's case is simple: the computers, high-definition screens, phones,
music players and video players that are currently being sold are
"defective by design". These products don't respect the user's right to
make private copies of their digital media. These devices make no
provision that would allow art, literature, music or film to ever fall
into the public domain. Effectively, the media purchased for these
devices does not belong to the user -- rather, the networking of these
DRM'd devices means that as the user watches a film, reads an e-book or
switches channels on their HDTV, their habits can be recorded and
actions monitored. The result is that over time, DRM technology will
negate, if not completely eliminate, the rights of the individual.
"In any other industry, such limitations or invasions would be
considered major flaws. A media player that restricts what you can play
is like a car that you won't let you steer," said Brown. "Products
containing DRM are defective -- only, unlike other products, these
defects are deliberately created by an industry that has long stopped
caring about us."
With DRM in place, media conglomerates can change the rules whenever
they want, leading to more restrictions on the individual.
"Media bosses scream 'pirate' equating sharing with murder and kidnap,
then sue our college students. They then steal our rights and impose
crippled products upon us," said Henri Poole, Chairman of CivicActions
and a coalition partner in the campaign. "Media bosses have long been
the 'gatekeepers to the market' for artists. Now they are threatened by
new distribution methods that give artists new freedoms and direct
access to an audience. DRM is the media bosses attempt to re-impose
their rule".
Today's event is the first in a series planned by DefectiveByDesign.org
that will mobilize individuals to make a stand against DRM.
----30----
About Defective By Design
DefectiveByDesign.org is a broad-based, anti-DRM campaign that is
targeting Big Media, unhelpful manufacturers and DRM distributors. It
aims to make all manufacturers wary about bringing their DRM-enabled
products to market. The campaign aims to identify "defective" products
for the consumer. Users are being asked to stand up in defense of their
existing freedoms and to take action by joining at
http://DefectiveByDesign.org
About the Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting
computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute
computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as
in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its
GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF
also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of
freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org ,
is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to
support their work can be made at http://fsf.org/join They are
headquartered in Boston, MA, USA.
----------
_______________________________________________
FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press(a)gnu.org>
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press
EUROPE TO HOST 3rd INTERNATIONAL GPLV3 CONFERENCE
BARCELONA, SPAIN, JUNE 22nd & 23rd
Europe will host the 3rd international GPLv3 conference on June 22nd &
23rd. The conference will take place in Barcelona, Spain, and the exact
venue will be announced soon.
In January, a year-long public consultation process for updating the GNU
General Public License was launched. Commonly called "the GPL", this
licence is used by the majority of Free Software to detail the distribution
terms of the software.
This coming conference will approximately mark the half-way point of
that process.
The goal of the GPL is to ensure that recipients of GPL covered
software are free to examine it, to modify it, to pass on copies, and
to distribute modifications. Version two of the GPL was released
fifteen years ago, in 1991. The new version is being drafted to
account for changes in the legal and technical environment in which
software licences operate.
The main changes in version three are to minimise the harm of software
patents, to prevent Digital Restrictions Management from being used
against software users, and to make the licence compatible with
certain classes of other Free Software licences.
The international GPLv3 conferences are part of an effort to maximise
awareness of the updating of the GPL, and to tap into the knowledge of
the community around the World. The first conference was in North
America, and the second was in South America.
When version three of the GPL is published at the end of this public
consultation process, most GPL covered software will automatically
transition to it.
Confirmed speakers include Richard Stallman, founder and president of Free
Software Foundation (FSF), who will discuss the reasons for the main
changes, Eben Moglen, chairman at Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) and
legal counsel of Free Software Foundation, who will explain the legal
implementation, and Georg Greve, President of Free Software Foundation
Europe. Expert panelists from all parts of Europe, and from around the
World will lead discussions on licence internationalisation, DRM, software
patents, and adoption of the finished licence.
The Conference's schedule and further information will be published
soon at http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/europe-gplv3-conference
--
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
1. Two lucky Fellows win a notebook
2. Giacomo Poderi starts internship at FSFE
3. FSFE core team continues to grow
4. Ciarán O'Riordan and Gareth Bowker speak in London
5. Free Software Forum in Brasil
6. Access to Knowledge Conference in USA
7. Hearing for Microsoft antitrust case
1. Two lucky Fellows win a notebook
The Fellowship is extremely important to sustain the activities of the
Free Software Foundation Europe. For this reason, the FSFE tries to
find ways of saying thank you to all who joined: This year, two HP
Compaq notebooks were donated for random distribution among our
Fellows. The winners of the raffle are Andrea Di Dato from Italy, and
Wouter van Heyst from the Netherlands. Congratulations once more and
enjoy your new machines!
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2006q2/000134.html
2. Giacomo Poderi starts internship with FSFE
The Free Software Foundation Europe welcomes Giacomo Poderi as its new
intern. Giacomo lives in Zürich and works for FSFE from April to August
2006. His main task is administrative support for the President, the
office, and the whole FSFE team. Giacomo has studied Philosophy in
Bologna, Italy, and chose to work for FSFE because it allows to take
part in some processes deeply related with social and technical aspects
of daily life.
FSFE thanks Alexander Finkenberger for the valuable work he did during
his internship, which ended in March. Alexander has decided to
continue to work for FSFE on a volunteer basis and remains active in
the core team of FSFE.
3. FSFE core team continues to grow
Antonella Beccaria, Cristian Rigamonti and Patrick Ohnewein joined the
core team of FSFE. All of them have been active supporters of Free
Software for several years. Together with Stefano Maffulli, they turn
Italy into a firm and powerful base of the Free Software Foundation
Europe.
4. Ciarán O'Riordan and Gareth Bowker speak in London
On April 7th, the British Computer Society hosted a Free Software
evening where Ciarán O'Riordan gave a presentation about FSFE's work
against software patents and about the GPLv3, and Gareth Bowker gave a
presentation about copyright law and how DRM can restrict computer
users. Both answered questions and the discussion with the attendees
continued for a long time afterward.
5. Free Software Forum in Brasil
Georg Greve and Ciaran O'Riordan took part in the 7th edition of the
Free Software Forum (FISL) in Porto Alegre, Brasil. Georg Greve gave
one of the opening talks ("Free Software - Social Movement or
Technological Revolution?"), and participated in the sessions on Free
Software Foundation Latin America, 100% Free Software distributions,
and the license compatibility panel for the 2nd international
conference on GPLv3. Ciaran O'Riordan spoke about the work against
software patents and participated in various ways in the GPLv3
conference. Besides these public appearances, both also worked with
FSFE's sister organisation, the FSF Latin America and the local Free
Software community to strengthen the international Free Software
network.
6. Access to Knowledge Conference in USA
The Information Society Project at Yale Law School held a landmark
conference on Access to Knowledge (A2K) on April 21-23. Karsten Gerloff
moderated a podium on "Licensing Frameworks for Access to Knowledge".
The speakers investigated the possibilities and limitations of licenses
in regulating knowledge. The debate centered on the limits of the
Creative Commons concept.
The conference was a great opportunity to make contact with other
activists and academics in the A2K field. The organisers have documented
most of the conference in a public wiki.
http://research.yale.edu/isp/a2k/wiki/index.php/Yale_A2K_Conference
7. Hearing for Microsoft antitrust case
After many years of investigation, years of legal battle and literally
billions of Euro spent by Microsoft to uphold its monopoly, the
European Court in Luxembourg convened in its grand jury of 13 judges
for a one-week hearing. The purpose of this hearing was to decide
whether Microsofts accusations of unfair treatment and mistakes in
judgement by the European Commission are founded and whether the
decision should be abolished or modified.
In close cooperation with the Samba Team, the Free Software Foundation
Europe had a Team of five people present in Luxembourg to defend the
Commissions decision: Accompanied by FSFE president Georg Greve,
FSFE's lawyer on the case, Carlo Piana, and FSFE's media coordinators
Joachim Jakobs and Antonella Beccaria, Samba Team founder Andrew
Tridgell spoke in court on behalf of the FSFE. His clear and profound
explanations greatly helped invalidate many of the false claims made
by Microsoft. A decision is expected within this year, and also thanks
to the work done by FSFE and Samba, some slight optimism is warranted.
You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
FSFE welcomes KDE e.V. as new associate organisation
The KDE e.V. -- a registered non-profit organisation that represents
the K Desktop Environment (KDE®) in legal and financial matters -- and
the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) are proud to announce their
associate status, working together for the promotion and protection of
Free Software on users' desktops in Europe and worldwide.
"The Free Software community started to build freedom into the most
basic building blocks of an operating system, finishing the operating
system GNU/Linux in the early 90s, taking over more than 60 percent of
the web servers with Apache [1] and has become a seminal building
block of the networked society and economy," says Georg Greve,
president of FSFE. "As a community, we then tackled the desktop as the
next big step. Today we have two fully functional desktops that bear
comparison to any other desktop in use around the world: GNOME and
KDE."
"Although GNU/Linux and KDE are used on desktops in many companies and
governments around the world, some people still have preconceptions
about lack of usability of GNU/Linux on the desktop," Eva
Brucherseifer, president of the KDE e.V., points out.
She continues: "KDE has embraced the openusability project and they
are now working closely together with the developers. This already led
to numerous improvements on the usability side of KDE but will have
even bigger effect in the KDE 4 release cycle where we're able to make
more intrusive changes leading to enhanced usability in all kinds of
areas.
"The desktop is one of the most important battlefields for the long
term success of Free Software. In the antitrust case it has become
apparent how Microsoft could take its quasi-monopoly on the desktop
and use it as leverage in other areas. FSFE is helping to put an end
to this in the EU antitrust case, but this is not enough: We need to
put an end to proprietary desktop monopolies that made such abuse
possible," Georg Greve explains the background for FSFE's decision to
take action in this area. "Together with the KDE e.V. we seek to break
the stranglehold on the desktop, give people freedom, and explain to
them why this is important, and why they should not give it up again."
One of the first projects discussed between the organisations will
involve the provision of more information to interested parties about
Free Software and inform them about alternatives. "But this can be
only the first step", adds Eva Brucherseifer and points out:
"Ultimately our goal must be to help build a strong environment of
Free Software service companies. We have been cooperating unofficially
in the past, and are now very happy to also work with the Free Software
Foundation Europe officially towards this goal."
[1] http://www.serverwatch.com/news/article.php/3596491
Trademark Notices
KDE®, K Desktop Environment and the KDE Logo® are trademarks or
registered trademarks of KDE e.V. in the European Union, the United
States and other countries. Trolltech and Qt are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Trolltech AS in Norway and other countries.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
About KDE
The KDE project consists of hundreds of developers, translators,
artists and other contributors worldwide collaborating over the
Internet. The community creates and freely distributes a stable,
integrated and free desktop and office environment. KDE provides
a flexible, component-based, network-transparent architecture and
powerful development tools, offering an outstanding development
platform. Reflecting its international team and focus, KDE 3.5 is
currently available in over 80 different languages.
KDE, which is based on Qt® technology from Trolltech®, is working
proof that the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development
model can yield first-rate technologies on par with and superior
to even the most complex commercial software.
About the Free Software Foundation Europe
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) is a charitable
non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free
Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may participate
in a digital society. Therefore the freedoms to use, copy, modify and
redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition -
allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness
of these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and
giving people freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
central issues of the FSF Europe, which was founded in 2001 as the
European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the
United States.
www.fsfeurope.org
Contact
KDE e.V.
Eva Brucherseifer <eva(a)kde.org>
Phone: +49 6151 3 969 961
Sebastian Kügler <sebas(a)kde.org>
Phone: +31 6 483 709 28
FSF Europe:
Georg C. F. Greve <greve at fsfeurope.org>
Phone: +41 76 561 18 66
Joachim Jakobs <jakobs at fsfeurope.org>
Phone: +49 179 6919565