From the Campaign for Document Freedom
Gentle Protest Against Software Patents in India
The situation in India has been covered quite a few times recently because it's getting grim [
1,
2,
3,
4]. Fortunately, now comes
the organised opposition.
Bengaluru Meetup
When: 10am, Saturday 16th August 2008
Where: BMS College of Engineering, Basavanagudi
Agenda: Indian Patents office has called for a meeting of stakeholders in Bengaluru on 27th August (date still to be confirmed). We should submit a written appeal to stop introducing software patents in India. We will prepare this document here.
Software patents are, as stressed here before, merely a mechanism to have multi-nationals (and their local business partners) inherits the country's assets. These patents are being marketed differently, however, in order for them to pass as a new amendment to the law.
Groklaw: "Enemies of FOSS Are Attacking"
Pamela Jones
pointed this out yesterday. We are
well past the
"then they laugh at you" phase, so it's only reasonable to prepare for more of the "then they attack you" outbursts. The OSI is explicitly mentioned by Pamela and
Bruce Perens warns that
Microsoft can have it ruined. The context is slightly different though.
It means that while OSI's handling of a list of approved licenses worked very well for a community made up of FOSS programmers, who are decent folks all on the same page overall, now that enemies of FOSS are attacking, we need a new organization to vet licenses going forward a lot more carefully, one made up of experienced FOSS lawyers, none of them with a history of hostility to, or ignorance of, the GPL, with the community as advisors.
KDE
We are still
watching KDE and Mono closely, hoping not to find irreversible intersection between these two. Some people have already noticed
the growing trend inside GNOME.
As I briefly mentioned in another post, I am seriously concerned with GNOME’s infatuation with Microsoft technologies.
As a newcomer to the Linux scene, I was not aware that GNOME was tied up with Novell and all in a 3-way with Redmond. However, the more I find out about, the more discomforted I become...
And then there's
this comment.
Keep KDE Kleen
KDE needs to poll their own users before allowing proprietary sewage like C# and Mono to infect our relatively clean desktop.
I think most will be strongly opposed.
I will certainly be looking for a new desktop, for the first time since becoming involved with Free Software.
Just as a quick recap, consider Novell's role.
SUSE is a good tool for Microsoft. It enables Microsoft to clog up some gaps where Windows would never fit. SUSE enables the monopolist to replace GNU/Linuxes with something that it 'owns' (in the mythical/'intellectual' sense) and it's therefore paid for ('compensated'). Using hypervisor/format/'protection' caveats, Microsoft
hopes to elevate its own asset (SUSE) at the expense of Ubuntus and Red Hats that roam freely, without per-copy restriction and Microsoft's wrath.
Novell needs to be stopped. SLED/S/RT needs to be stopped. At the moment, if a company insists on using GNU/Linux, Microsoft can give them GNU/Linux, but not the GNU/Linux they want and need. Mono could part of
the plan to transform ownership, passing more of it to Microsoft.
⬆
Comments
Roy Bixler
2008-08-15 17:52:47
Surely you mean "... hoping *not* to find irreversible intersection ..."?
Roy Schestowitz
2008-08-15 18:27:17