[Fwd: [discuss] GOSLING members interviewed for CTV's Tech Now]

Wed Oct 4 22:07:20 UTC 2006

That was a great read. I've seen these points come up all over the place
lately, and hopefully we are on track for a breakthrough in the fight
against DRM and legal rights to freely use your own hardware.

On 10/4/06, Dave Sullivan <dave at dave-sullivan.com> wrote:
>
> Here's an interesting read... something to keep an eye out for.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Russell McOrmond <russell at flora.ca>
> To: GOSLING members in Ottawa <ottawa-gosling at list.goslingcommunity.org>,
> General Copyright Discussions <discuss at list.digital-copyright.ca>, CLUE
> general discussion list <discuss at cluecan.ca>
> Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2006 14:47:50 -0400
> Subject: [discuss] GOSLING members interviewed for CTV's Tech Now
>
>    This afternoon Mike Richardson http://www.sandelman.ca/mcr/ and I
> http://www.flora.ca/russell/ were interviewed by a reporter for CTV's
> show Tech Now http://www.cjoh.com/technow.asp  . Tech Now airs as part
> of the 6pm newscast each Sunday in Ottawa.
>
>    The event that inspired the interview was a recent GOSLING project.
> A group of people in Ottawa got together to create 308 envelopes to send
> to each of the Members of the Canadian parliament.  This envelope
> contained 2 CDs of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS), as well
> as a number of pages and pamphlets of information.  (Details of contents
> at http://www.goslingcommunity.org/mp/ )
>
>    If you would like to help make MPs aware of the importance of this
> package, could they please send a letter to their MP.  I have set up a
> sample letter at http://www.digital-copyright.ca/edid/letter3
>
>    While we will need to wait to see what the edited segment includes,
> there are a few ideas that were spoken about that I wanted to list.
> Mike and I were interviewed separately, with Mike at his home and me at
> the CJOH building downturn so that we could have the parliament
> buildings in the background.  The room we used is the same room used for
> the CTV show Question Period.
>
>    I believe both Mike and I mentioned the size of the commercial FLOSS
> economy.  I had recently listened to an audio BLOG that included a full
> interview with Eben Moglen http://www.twit.tv/floss13 . One of the
> things he mentioned was that commercial FLOSS represents a 40 Billion
> dollar (US) economy, approximately half of which is software licensed
> under the GNU GPL.
>
>    From the phone interview yesterday the reporter rightly decided that
> I would be the one to ask some of the political question.   Why send a
> package to each of the MPs?  It is not about convincing the government
> to purchase more FLOSS software and services, given MPs are not involved
> in that decision.  MPs regulate the software industry, and we need to
> ensure that the government regulates in a way that the choice to use
> FLOSS is protected.
>
>    The last question I was asked related to how hard I thought the
> educational process was.  I indicated that we had an uphill battle in
> that most people do not know what software is.  Software isn't simply a
> product that is bought off the shelf, but the rules that computer
> hardware follows.  When people think of software as a set of rules, this
> encourages them to ask important questions.  Who is writing these rules,
> and who benefits from these rules?  I spoke about how we could learn a
> lot about FLOSS by comparing it to political science and the process
> that laws are thought of, debated and passed.
>
>    I spoke a fair bit about copyright law as an example.  The theory is
> this:  since people can use their own technology to infringe copyright,
> it was decided that laws would be passed to disallow people from
> controlling their own technology.  Once someone other than the owner is
> in control of the technology, this greatly harms all technology users.
>   I gave the example of someone's child taking their first steps in
> front of the television set, and the camera automatically disabling
> because there is no way for the camera to accurately tell the difference
> between a "pirate" and a "parent".
>
>    I spoke about how critical this question of personal control, and
> accountability and transparency of software, becomes as technology
> becomes more personal.  When we have digital eyeglasses, digital hearing
> aids, and digitally controlled prosthetic limbs that it should be
> obvious that the wearers of these technologies should be legally
> protected to be fully in control of this technology.
>
>    I would like to thank William Stewart (Free Open Source Solutions
> Inc.  http://www.freeopensourcesolutions.com/ ) for both helping to
> organize this initiative, as well as contacting the media and setting up
> this interview.
>
> Russell McOrmond
> Policy Coordinator for CLUE:  Canada's Association for Open Source
> http://cluecan.ca
> Co-coordinator for GOSLING: Getting Open Source Logic INto Governments
> http://goslingcommunity.org
>
>
> --
>   Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
>   Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
>   rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
>   http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/
>
>   "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
>    manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
>    portable media player from my cold dead hands!"
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
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