gmane.linux.elitists

RIP Ed Foster

Karsten M. Self — 2008-08-01T22:43:05

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Brett Glass speaks out against Net Neutrality

Teh Entar-Nick — 2008-07-31T14:56:56

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072902077.html

One more thing on DRM...

Don Marti — 2008-07-27T21:49:36

From the political news files: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/26/michael-savage-lawsuit-ag_n_115103.html "In her ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said people who listen to a public broadcast are entitled to use excerpts for purposes of comment and criticism." Of course, if the comment and criticism had used a circumvented copy of a DRM-restricted work, no such exception applies. Anyone got an example of a straight-up _political speaker_ who's using a DRM-restricted format, and a comment on or criticism of that speaker?

[rms< at >gnu.org: Re: Defective By Design]

Aaron Porter — 2008-07-27T20:13:27

----- Forwarded message from Richard M Stallman gnu.org> ----- From: Richard M Stallman gnu.org> CC: linux-elitists< at >zgp.org Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] Defective By Design Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:14:51 -0400 Is it just me, or is it the FSF that seems to have gone defective? Maybe neither. I think you and some others have misunderstood and misjudged our protest. Their latest anti-iPhone campaign[1] crosses some lines I'm not too pleased with. They're urging people to setup a meatspace denial of service attack against the "Genius Bars" in Apple Stores world wide That's not what we are doing. We have asked people to go to Apple stores and show Apple's staff their opposition to Apple's DRM. Describing this with terms such as "denial of service" and "disruption" is untrue. Calling it an "attack" is an exaggeration. When people go one by one to a store and tell the staff what they think, that's not an attack. When Apple implements DRM, when Apple deactivates unlocked iPhones, that's an attack. "Voting with your feet" means individually rejecting DRM. Of course you should do that, but acting collectively is stronger than acting individually. The movie companies organize, the record companies organize, and a large company such as Apple is lots of people who are organized to achieve an aim which in this case is unjust. To overcome them, we must organize too. It would be a shame if DRM prevails because we artificially limited ourselves to individual action in response to a well-planned attack on our freedom. So if you recognize DRM as a threat to your freedom, please participate in this and other protests. If even 5 protestors visit a store in a day, the protest will be a success there, but we cannot take that much participation for granted. I am not a supporter of Linux, and I am not on the linux-elitists mailing list. So it is likely that my response will not get through to the list. If it does not, would you please forward it there? ----- End forwarded message -----

Defective By Design

Aaron Porter — 2008-07-26T20:31:54

Is it just me, or is it the FSF that seems to have gone defective? Their latest anti-iPhone campaign[1] crosses some lines I'm not too pleased with. They're urging people to setup a meatspace denial of service attack against the "Genius Bars" in Apple Stores world wide in an effort to educate Apple about it's product is "restricting your freedoms". They previously posted "5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G"[2], a brief but quite valid list of reasons users might want to avoid the iPhone (curiously omitting the lack of any support for non-iTunes activation, use, etc). Their last reason for avoiding the device -- "iPhone is not the only option." seems to negate the militant tactics they're adopting now. I've been a longtime supporter of the FSF (up to but not including prefixing Linux with GNU), contributing my own time and money as well as pushing through software "purchases" by my employers. I'm not sure I want to be associated with the group after this. Sure the iPhone is sexy, but there has been sexy hardware for decades that lacked free software support. I have and continue to "vote with my feet" -- making purchasing decisions for myself and my employers based on our ability to use products in the way we desire. I have and will continue to try to educate others and convince them to do the same. I don't think I'll every be convinced that deliberately disrupting a legal business practice and denying a valid service to users who have made different ethical choices than my own will have a positive result in freeing anything. [1] http://www.defectivebydesign.org/apple-challenge [2] http://defectivebydesign.org/5-reasons-to-avoid-iphone-3g

Installfest for Schools

Andrew Fife — 2008-07-24T20:00:50

Hi Folks: I'm very pleased to announce that Untangle & ACCRC have teamed up with LinuxWorld (Aug 5-7) for our second Installfest for Schools. The first ACCRC/Untangle Installfest for Schools in March refurbished 350 Ubuntu computers for schools[1]. This time we've gotten a large booth on the expo floor and will have workstations setup for volunteers to refurbish recycled computers with Ubuntu and GnewSense. We particularly need help with the following: 1)Installing Ubuntu and/or gNewSense 2)Hacking older hardware and identifying good/bad components You can signup for a work station here: http://www.untangle.com/installfest Also, if you know of a school in need of computers that’s willing to try GNU/Linux please nominate them here: http://www.untangle.com/index.php?option=com_collect&task=installfestNominate&Itemid=1426 And if you have an older computer that you want to donate or recycle, please bring it to LinuxWorld. ACCRC will have a collection booth setup and can provide tax deductable receipts. PIII and newer systems will be refurbished with Ubuntu for schools. Older systems will be recycled properly by the ACCRC. Lastly, we are always looking for help getting the word out. If you want to give the event some love on your blog, Digg, StumbleUpon, Slashdot, or some crazy forum please link to the main installfest page, which is http://www.untangle.com/installfest Thanks so much for your help! -Andrew P.S. The LinuxWorld Expo free if you register before the conference starts here: https://register.rcsreg.com/regos-1.0/lnsf2008/ga/index2.html References: [1]Here is a writeup of the first event: http://lwn.net/Articles/273770/ and here are some pictures: http://www.untangle.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=355&Itemid=139 -- Andrew Fife Untangle - The Open Source Network Gateway www.untangle.com/download 650.425.3327 desk 415.806.6028 cell _______________________________________________ linux-elitists mailing list linux-elitists< at >zgp.org http://allium.zgp.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linux-elitists

Applications and the infamous DNS vulnerability

Don Marti — 2008-07-24T16:40:04

On a properly set up home or office network, it should be difficult to poison the nameserver completely from the outside -- for a long time it's been best practice to put your public DNS on a separate machine. Of course an attacker can easily trick an application on the inside into doing a bunch of DNS queries -- the simplest example is that a user could visit a malicious web page with a bunch of images. Should applications that handle untrusted data be keeping track of the number of times they get NXDOMAIN for subdomains of one domain -- some kind of wrapper around getaddrinfo -- then refusing to query again if there are so many that it looks like an attack? Maybe with a "I'm not looking up another randomcrap.example.com domain for you" dialog, or maybe just stop processing the offending web page or whatever other data source is causing the queries?

Obfuscated TCP

Don Marti — 2008-07-18T17:16:08

Anyone following the "Obfuscated TCP" kernel patch set and userspace library? http://code.google.com/p/obstcp/ Fast opportunistic crypto at the TCP level. Looks like a useful way to make it difficult for ISPs to use services such as Phorm and NebuAd to collect user tracking data and ad revenue -- so webmasters should be all over it. And, of course, it's protection against forged RST attacks. Doesn't work if the attacker is willing to spend more and do an MITM attack, though.

Spam complying with CAN SPAM

Don Marti — 2008-06-14T18:10:59

Looks like the Marketing types of the world are getting emboldened by our pro-spam FTC... http://weblog.infoworld.com/gripeline/archives/2008/06/ftc_says_yes_yo.html I'm starting to see spam that looks like it traces back to a semi-legit company. Anyone else getting spam linking to disposable domain names that copy the content from patchperfect dot com -- with the company's actual contact info and an apparently working unsubscribe link? whois has officialtvwebsite822 dot com at the same postal address as the original site: 6070 Mission Gorge Rd. Suite 1, San Diego, CA 92120. Either this is a very good joe job, or it's another attempt by DMA types to push the boundaries. Looks like an opportunity for another Gevalia-style lawsuit. Of course, the infomercial impresarios behind this grass seed company will start another company selling something else, but there's probably enough money to make it worthwhile for a small ISP or mail host with a reasonably priced lawyer.

USB-Serial and pppd

Greg Folkert — 2008-06-12T06:27:55

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eee-pc 900 FLOSS impurity [was Re: attack of thelow-cost ultra-mobile linux boxen]

Tony Godshall — 2008-05-19T21:32:15

Yes, quite possibly. But I'm willing to accept baby steps in our direction. While fully GPL-free drivers are very much the ideal, I'll take BSD-free as two steps forward, and semi-proprietary as one step forward away from Microsoft-world. I think this strategy is more effective than the FSF-style all-or-nothing confontational approach. It's more in line with Linus' and Ubuntu's approach and look where it's got them vs FSF. Heck, even Debian is not hostile to proprietary software; they just say it won't be in Debian. Anyhow, there's no pure Libre laptop in this class and I think it's a huge step ahead to (a) have Linux installed and (b) see the manufacturer cooperate with and document other peripherals not of its own manufacture that work with it. I hope not, but I'm not such a purist that I'll avoid all proprietary software: I think infrastructure (OS) should be Free, and more importantly, that file and network standards should be Free, but I don't mind letting the market decide about apps, as long as they don't do the MS monopolistic lockdown on you. Anyway, the voice activation is just a toy, as is the multitouch zoom feature which doesn't even work in Firefox. I'll certainly have more opportunity to report just what is and is not ideal from a FLOSS standpoint when I get around to installing and booting other distros (SD card)

attack of the low-cost ultra-mobile linux boxen

Tony Godshall — 2008-05-19T17:36:14

I was tempted by the eee-pc but stayed out because of the screen (800 pixels wide? heck, my cell phone does that!). To me, a device needs 1024 wide to render a web page properly (due to rigid web designers) and at least 100dpi. But now with the HP2133 coming out (ship date ETA 6/1 at last visit to HP.com) I looked around again I found that there's now an eee-pc with a bigger, sharper screen, and another very interesting ultraportable: the wibrain (heheh). I post here the specs I collected in the hopes it'll save someone else some trouble: wibrain b1lh 1024x600 4.8" 247dpi1.15lb$499512M RAM 30G VIA C7M 1.2GHz CPULinux/Ubuntudynamism.com or redorbit.com wibrain b1le 1024x600 4.8" 247dpi1.15lb$6491G RAM 60G VIA C7M 1.2GHz CPULinux/Ubuntudynamism.com or redorbit.com eee pc 900 1024x600 8.9" 133dpi2.1lb$5501G RAM 20G IntelLinux/Susecentralcomputer hp 2133 1280x1024 8.9" 184dpi2.8lb $550512M RAM 20G VIA C7-M 1.2 GhzLinuxKR922UT Linux version from hp.com ships ~6/1/08 In the end I bought an eee pc 900 in person at Central Computer in Santa Clara rather than wait for the HP, partly because I'm heading to Asia in a week and partly because it has more memory. A couple of cool things I found after I bought it: 1) ASUS has, in its manual, a list of devices qualified to work with it (mostly USB devices) including normally problematic things like TV tuners. 2) It has voice activation included for launching apps: you say "computer, notes" and it brings up a sticky note. You say "computer, clock" and it brings up a world clock app. 3) Power supply is 12V DC which is handy

What would be the proper course of action for apossible GPL violation?

James Sparenberg — 2008-05-15T02:55:05

All, As some of you may have seen on slashdot there is an announcement that all asus mobo's will in the near future contain built in splashtop Linux desktop. Being the curious monkey I am. I go to the site and start looking for packages and source. Just to see what it is I'm dealing with. Not only am I not finding a path to source, but I saw this page and the following paragraph contained within. http://www.splashtop.com/aboutus-corporate.php DeviceVM is releasing its first software product, Splashtop, in October of 2007. Splashtop is a proprietary technology developed by DeviceVM that provides users with a rapid-start alternative to the traditional operating system. Now before people start calling me alarmist. I'm not trying to raise a call to arms, and I do understand business. What I'm looking for is the proper method to follow to find the people able to assist DeviceVM in working with GPL'd software, and complying with it's license. Suggestions? James

micro-linux servers powered over ethernet?

Phil Mayers — 2008-05-14T16:03:56

All, We've got a possible application for a tiny linux server. The form factor would be small, USB-key sized, and they'd need to have an ethernet port and draw their power from a PoE socket. (The specific application is plugging them into old ethernet switches, and the devices would emit LLDP packets, thus allowing us to topology-discover our network) Anyone know of such a thing?

So, how about those 46 Patent Court Judges...

Greg Folkert — 2008-05-06T21:05:42

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Deploying server apps with git hooks?

Don Marti — 2008-05-05T19:04:52

Is anyone using a git repository with an appropriate hook script to deploy a server-side application? You could do something like "git push staging" or "git push live" on your own repository, and a hook on the server takes care of checking out and deploying the software, and running any necessary init scripts.

Announcement: FreedomHEC 2008

Don Marti — 2008-04-28T23:37:51

FreedomHEC 2008, the Linux device driver "unconference", will take place November 8-9, 2008 in Santa Monica, California, following WinHEC in Los Angeles. Plan to attend and learn why Linux support has become an industry standard requirement for new hardware, and how you can get your products supported under Linux quickly and conveniently for customers. Who: Hardware engineers, driver developers, you. What: Device driver unconference Where: Santa Monica, California, USA When: November 8-9, 2008 Why: Make your hardware valuable to the growing Linux market. At FreedomHEC, participants will learn how the Linux driver development process works, differently from the complex processes used to develop drivers for proprietary operating systems. The kernel team and the Linux distributions take on much of the build, test, and support work for a driver, freeing up the hardware manufacturer's driver team to concentrate on the core code. You'll also have an opportunity to discuss your driver development options, including the opportunity to work with the Linux Driver Project and the Linux Foundation to have a driver developed free of charge, under an NDA that keeps your device documentation confidential but that allows the actual code to become part of the Linux process. Bring your toughest technical and organizational questions. Sponsors are: host sponsor Edmunds.com; sponsors Google, the Linux Foundation, and the Linux Driver Project; and media sponsors LinuxWorld.com and LWN. To attend FreedomHEC, sign up at the conference Wiki at http://freedomhec.pbwiki.com/ Conference attendance is free of charge for anyone who pre-registers on the Wiki. Contact: Don Marti zgp.org> (WinHEC is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. FreedomHEC is not affiliated with Microsoft Corporation.)

NYLXS Press Release on the OLPC Project

Ruben Safir — 2008-04-26T18:15:22

In response to many of the questions regarding the changes in the OLPC project, and specifically the decision to base the project at this juncture to a Microsoft Operating System, proponents of this change have come out swinging against Free Software developers who have worked for the current Free Interface, code named Sugar. A large segment of the critique of the against Free Software developers like Bender is that they have put their "Open Source" agenda above the welfare of the project. Others claim that the "Open Source" advocates should be pleased with the what has already been done and that the project as it stands can either be relaunched or has already met goals. The problem, though, is that in many ways, the marketing and financial positioning of the OLPC program is harder to develop then the hardware and software. And the goals that have been met are small in light of the original mission of the OLPC project. An operating system is more than a commodity. It becomes the looking glass that develops how the user thinks and it literally shapes the mind of it's users. A system which is at it's core designed to disenfranchise users from the learning experience, especially in how the user views the software itself through learned expectations, and forces information access through monopolistic channels and filters, undermines the development of critical thinking skills. In geek terms, the operating system reprograms the end user. The Microsoft operating system is designed to do so from the ground up. It is in fact the only intended use of the Microsoft Windows Operating System franchise. The interaction between technology on human and societal development dates to the beginning of civilization, if not even before that. One interesting scholarly article on the topic which is archived at http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources/technology_changes_how_we_think.txt by Robin Wilson explores how the Gutenberg printing printing press causes an explosion of mathematical usage and development, and how a large part of that was developed by the standardization of mathematical symbols for universal communication and expression. " Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press (around 1440) revolutionised mathematics, enabling classic mathematical works to be widely available for the first time. Previously, scholarly works, such as the classical texts of Euclid, Archimedes and Apollonius had been available only in manuscript form, but the printed versions made these works much more widely available. At first the new books were printed in Latin or Greek for the scholar, and many scholarly editions appeared. The earliest printed version of Euclid’s Elements, published in Venice in 1482, and there is an attractive 1492 edition of Ptolemy’s Almagest. Apollonius’s Conics appeared in 1537, and seven years later the works of Archimedes were published in both Latin and Greek, and there was a celebrated edition of Diophantus’s Arithmetic in 1621, reissued in 1670, with the Greek text, a Latin translation by Bachet, and comments by Fermat, including his famous marginal comment on the ‘last theorem’. .... The invention of printing also led to the gradual standardisation of mathematical notation. In particular, the arithmetical symbols + and – first appeared in a 1489 arithmetic text by Johann Widmann. Surprisingly, the symbols × and ÷ were not in general use until the seventeenth century – we’ll see how × developed shortly; the division sign ÷ was introduced by John Pell. Needless to say, the quality of the mathematical printing in those days was very variable. Here we see two version of Pascal’s arithmetical triangle from the same year, 1545: Stifel’s publisher was having a good day, while Scheubelius was less fortunate." The most important point Wilson makes as relating to the OLPC project is in this paragraph: "Record was such a fine lecturer that his audience regularly applauded his lectures. We don’t know what he looked like. For a long time, there was only one known picture of him, but recently severe doubts have been raised as to its authenticity. One might well ask: ‘Is this a Record?’ Record’s books were written in English, and ran to many editions. The ground of artes of 1543 was an arithmetic book explaining the various rules so simply that ‘everie child can do it’. As with all his books, it was written in the form of a Socratic dialogue between a scholar and his master." Prior to this era of copyright and DRM encumbered communications, the printing press caused a prodigious discovery of the potential of the human intellect and from it's most early uses western masters used it to communicate with the masses, specifically targeting children for education. The art of printing exploded, it's teaching as a trade, science and technology every bit as vital to the democratization and economic development that the West would experience from that very day in around 1440 when the press was invented. In the short 600 years since technology has revolutionized communications, through the printing era, into the wireless and wired analog era, the broadcast media era and through to today with the digital media era humanity has evolved directly in response to the use, development, deployment and education with communications media, and diverse (classically defined) liberal education has been the cornerstone of world civilization as it has spread from the West to every corner of the world. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in her ground breaking book, "Infidel", repeatedly describes how her interaction with libraries and books. Why surrounded in a world of Islamic Brotherhood lectures and learnings with the repeated mantra of "TOTAL OBEDIENCE" by local figures in her life such as Boqol Sawm and Sister Aziza, Hirsi-Ali found comfort in cheap romantic novels. She writes, " But the allure of romance called to us from the pages of books. In school we read good books, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, and Daphne du Maurier; out of school Halwaa's sisters kept us supplied with cheap Harlequins. These were trashy soap opera-like novels, but they were exciting — sexually exciting." Hirsi-Ali has the advantage of literacy and the support of a free press. The purpose of the OLPC project is also literacy. Not just the literacy of the pen, and the literacy of mathematics, politics and arts, but computer literacy, the new medium which will be required for the development of children worldwide to fully share in our emerging enriched worldwide culture. There are too many stumbling blocks as there is. The quoted material above was far too arduous from me gather into this message. The text, instead of being able to be be quickly cut and pasted into this window had to be typed by hand because online resources like Google-Books was prevented from making it available as text. It was only because of my 20 years of steep education in this topic, and my ability to reverse engineer the protections that have been enforced in this media that I was able even locate the appropriate material to present this point to an interested public on this important point. The Microsoft Operating system is designed to restrict digital access according to information in order to optimize a monopolistic, non-competitive agenda, the most essential restriction being the discovery of the basic tools and carnal knowledge of the computer systems, the modern printing press, itself. This directly conflicts with the core OLPC charter and goal. While that can be ridiculed as an "Open Source" agenda and irrational hangup, I'd argue based on the historical evidence that the accusatory tone of such statements are fundamentally flawed and very much more in line with the kind of rationality which one might expect from a despot philosophy such as which might come from controlling Communist Party in today's Red China. The agenda, design and functionality of the Sugar interface, and it's origins in GNU software and Linux kernels in specious and spurious. Oxymoronic as that may sound, it is not the devotion to "Open Source" which makes the move from Sugar to Microsoft Software untenable to the goals of the One Laptop Per Child program. It is the change from a classically Liberal based education program, a cornerstone of Western and World progress to a regressive monopolistic platform which inhibits by design those Western values and the knowledge of humanity so that it can be adapted to other native cultures and thereby help assure the survival all of mankind as a free, informed and tolerant civilization. What, may I ask, is it intended that we teach these children in the third world with a billion laptops? That is the only relevant question. Sugar is designed from the ground up to answer this question. Obviously the Microsoft product has no such agenda. Ruben Safir President NYLXS

Privacy project

Brenno J.S.A.A.F. de Winter, wgasa — 2008-04-14T09:06:33

Hi all, I started an open source project to enhance privacy. A lot is going on in Europa (actually the US too) that needs some attention. The whole story is below in the original posting. I would like to encourage everybody who feels like lurking or joining to mail me: brenno< at >dewinter.com and I'll put you on the list. Of course I won't start spamming this list now. This is a one off post and people that know me, know also that this is an urgent matter. Cheers, Brenno de winter Dear all, As promised I would kick-off a mailinglist on privacy in order to build an open source project. I tried it off-list for some time, but it is hard to get things going in a direction. So I start over without any prejudice to technologies or solutions. Let the wisdom of the crowd take care of the project. You're on the list, because we discussed this and you wanted to lurk or participate. The list of members is not public, so if you lurk you are not giving away your identity. *Anecdote* Today I flew back home from the US through London. On the flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam something remarkable happened: A little girl (I guess 4 years of age) went to the toilet and when she came out the pilot was standing there. The door to the cockpit was open. When she came out the pilot invited her in to have a look. Ten years ago this would not get any reaction from anybody, but when I saw this I felt so happy: Common sense is back! A captain that realizes that people should be able to trust a small kid to a certain extend. I did make sure I told the crew and they felt the very same about it. For me this underlines the fundamental point that we are dealing with: we live in a society that has become distrusting of anything and anybody with ourselves as the main victim. *Ground for the project* In today's world we don't trust anybody and we go to extreme's to violate the privacy of everybody to get .... a sense of security? Currently there are some urgent matters that need our attention: - Europe is implementing a new directive that enforces EU-nations to create law that stores traffic information on communication we 500+ million Europeans have. So for a period of minimal 6 months we store who's calling who (or who's attemting too), who's e-mailing who, who was online and where, who has what IP-address of phonenumber. This is what we call data retention. This is a big deal since whistle blowers and journalist have to go to great length in order to do their work without the government watching them all the time; - In a similar move the Dutch government (through transportation companies) is introducing a transportation card that fascilitates all public transportation. For fiscal reasons this data is stored for seven years. Unfortunately this has a side effect, since we are building a database with each movement of humans in our country. We know what bus they took, where they entered and where they went off. Current laws can make this information available to police and soon also to secret services. A similar system is being build for cars so that we can tax them by the mile. *The project* For the data retention there is a lot one can do to circumvent and thus obsolete the regulations. Of course without breaking the law. There are a lot of tools that enable us to obtain more privacy. The project aims to bundle those solutions and make them as broadly accessible as possible to people as we possibly can. We aim at two things: 1. Make tools available and as simple as possible; 2. Do knowledge transfer: a lot of people are in the dark on what happens with data retention and travelling. So we need to tell the story to the world. I have arranged a lot of action already behind the scenes so that we will hit news when that is a good moment. I have good hopes to arrange that very effectively, but we still need to tell a story. So let's build that. Second anecdote: When I took the train home I ended up with this guy. We started talking about the chipcard for transportation. When I explained what was happening on the administrative side he was visibly shocked and he told me he didn't know. I guess that goes for many people. Information is key. I would like to make a couple of suggestions on how we build the project: 1. We use the wisdom of the crowd. Everybody has knowledge let's bundle that; 2. We play legal. We're not doing anything sneaky or wrong, but we fight for our civil rights that we need; 3. We act as the KLM-pilot: Use our senses and stop accepting fear as our keydriver. We're not helping terrorist (they have their toolsets already), we're helping the people that want secure, reliable communications and privacy; 4. We're an open group that works together on the same vision. Everybody can help, everybody can benefit. So bring on everybody that shares our worries. To get started I'd suggest to think about how one can mail without data retention restrictions. Any ideas? Anything we need? Cheers, Brenno de Winter Skype: brennodewinter MSN: brenno< at >dewinter.com Jabber: brenno< at >jabber.org Twitter: brenno

Research Project: Legislation that impactsinformation rights

John Mark Walker — 2008-04-09T08:48:51

Greetings, As Ilan and I attempt to document all of the various ways that the US government has tweaked (butchered?) IP laws, I was wondering if anyone can help pull together the pieces of legislation that I should look at. So far, I have these: Federal government - DMCA 1998 Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 (HR811) FAIR USE Act of 2007 ( H.R. 1201) PERFORM Act (S. 256) Open Government Act 2007 (S. 849 / H.R. 1309) Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act of 2007 H.R.1908 - Patent Reform Act of 2007 The Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004 (S.2560) Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2003 (HR 107) Digital Media Consumer's Rights Act of 2005 (H.R.1201) H.R. 3155: Intellectual Property Enhanced Criminal Enforcement Act of 2007 H. Res. 231, H.Res. 169, and (H.R. 170 the Sunlight Act of 2007) And on a California state level: California Induce Act SB 96 (2005) California AB1668 - ODF / Open Standards in Government If you can think of any more, whether on a state or federal level, I would appreciate it. Basically, we're researching who supported and voted for these bills, and which lobbyist groups supported which politicians. We will then publish the information at http://deki.bytesfree.org/ One bill that comes to mind that I may have missed is the Sonny Bono copyright act. But basically, we're looking for any legislation, good or bad, which has had an impact on our ability to access and utilize information. -JM

BytesFree.org Call for Participation

John Mark Walker — 2008-04-08T06:21:16

Greetings, We at BytesFree.org are putting out a call for participation and wanted to share with LUG's and other Free Software-friendly groups what we are up to and why we need your help. We are currently in the process of, but have not yet completed, incorporating as a non-profit in California. If you're going to Lug Radio Live this weekend, we hope to see you in our booth: http://lugradio.org/live/USA2008/ Our Mission BytesFree.org is a group of concerned citizens dedicated to the protection of information rights - the right to access information we own. Some of us you may already know - myself, Ilan Rabinovitch from SCALE, Deb Bryant from GOSCON, Josh Berkus from PostgreSQL, Sun and SPI, Josh Drake from PostgreSQL and SPI, and David Fetter, also from PostgreSQL, as well as a few others. As far as what we do, here's our mission statement: BytesFree.org is dedicated to the idea that all people should have full and unrestricted access to all information to which they are legally or morally entitled. BytesFree.org works to ensure that public data is available to all, unburdened by restrictive access methods, non-standard file formats, unreasonable fees, unnecessary bureaucratic delays, or unpalatable legal requirements. But wait, don't we already have that? No, actually, and this exacts a societal toll that goes largely unnoticed. For further reading, see the following pages: - BytesFree.org About page http://www.bytesfree.org/bfblog/index.php/about/ - BytesFree.org Position Paper http://www.bytesfree.org/wiki/index.php/RightsPaper Lug Radio Live Our first event will be Lug Radio Live this Saturday and Sunday at the Metreon in San Francisco. If you are willing, we could use your help in the booth handing out flyers and talking to people about why these issues are important. If you're really super special, you'll volunteer to dress up as the statue of liberty. I myself am going as Uncle Sam, and my partner-in-crime, Ilan, is going as Abe Lincoln. If interested send me an email, or sign up on this page: http://www.bytesfree.org/wiki/index.php/Lug_Radio_Live_Volunteers If you can't volunteer, we hope you'll still visit. We look forward to meeting you there! Support BytesFree.org As of now, there are a couple of ways to get involved with BytesFree.org. Please consider joining the bytesfree-discuss mailing list: http://www.bytesfree.org/mailman/listinfo/bytesfree-discuss You may also subscribe to our blog feed: http://www.bytesfree.org/bfblog/index.php/feed/ This weekend we will announce a voter information project, which will contain information on members of congress with respect to their voting records, funding sources, and more, as it pertains to copyright reform, patent reform, net neutrality, and anything else we categorize as information rights. Ilan has been doing some great work there with a DekiWiki install, blending a myriad of information. If you know of any congressional or state legislature bills that we should obtain voting records for, please tell us. If you know of public stances taken by political candidates or officeholders, we want to know that, too. Basically, we need any information that will help voters determine whether someone is a friend of information rights. This project will only be as valuable as the information that others provide. If you have any thoughts, questions, or ideas, please do not hesitate to contact me directly or post to the mailing list. Thanks! John Mark Founder, BytesFree.org