"...It is this intensive effort at the private appropriation of knowledge that has created different movements of resistance. The free software movement, the movements of farmers against biopiracy in seeds and animal and vegetal types, where Western corporations are privatizing the fruits of thousands of year of communal cooperation; the movement of patients and developmental organizations for access to reasonably priced medicines and medical knowledge; the movement for free access to scientific publications, are all related reactions to these New Enclosures.
Read more »New lines of contention: Information Commons vs. New Enclosures
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Do Linux Users Care About Freedom?
Over at the TuxToday blog, there’s a post about Linux users not caring about freedom - because they’d rather just use Adobe’s Flash plugin in lieu of Free Software like Gnash. Or they think Richard Stallman and the FSF are morons who are hurting the Open Source movement. I’m torn by this argument, because I can see both sides of this.
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I’m sad to say: A lot of GNU/Linux-users don’t care about freedom
Many users of GNU/Linux these days, think that projects like Gnash are stupid, when you can get the original Flashplayer. Those are the same people that think you’re stupid if you don’t want to use the mp3-format, or install support for the windows-media format. This isn’t true only on brainstorm of course, but also in the overall community.
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The Buzz Word Today Is Change
Change. That's the word on the tips of everyone's tongues this year. One change everyone should consider is making the switch from expensive, proprietary software to open source.
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FSF to Host Summit on Freedom for Web Services
"The Free Software Foundation will host a mini-summit on Freedom for Web Services to discuss how the free software community can ensure that software, and its users, stay free in this new technological environment..."
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KDE4 ... Be Free campaign
With 4.0's release, the technology of KDE4 isn't the only thing we find ourselves at the starting line of. As many of you have probably noticed, a theme for our KDE4 promotion campaigns was also unveiled using the slogan "Be Free".
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Against Intellectual Monopoly
"It is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty."
It is an economic book that build a devastating case against patent and copyright laws.
Notes: It seem that book marks the GPL and other free software license as the exception and is something that they see as beneficial. It is something if possible they want to see preserved.
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The Free Software hardliner, the corporation, and the shotgun wedding
We called it Free Software at first. It wasn't until we started calling it Open Source that the punditry line counts began creeping up higher than the code line counts. We had this baby and we were proud of it, and the deep rooted insecurity born of being the ridiculed and utterly misunderstood underdogs made us require the approval of business and Grandma Bessie before we could ourselves be satisfied.
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Interview with Richard M. Stallman
"Mr. Stallman, creator of the GPL, FSF and GCC, shares his thoughts on a number of topics..."
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You can support software freedom in 2008!
Mako: "Dear free software supporter, Now is the time to join and give to Free Software Foundation. 2008 is going to be extraordinarily important year for free software. Eben Moglen likes to quote Gandhi's "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" progression when describing the free software movement. As I pointed out when I joined the FSF board, we're beginning to see powerful interests fighting free software. It's going to increase in the next few years. Things will probably get a lot uglier for free software before they get better. We can win but things are far from settled. The FSF is the front-line organization in this fight and we need a robust and proactive foundation, and an active and involved membership, if we're going to win.
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Free software, free speech
Regular visitors of my blog know that nothing outrages me more than people who apply these guerrilla tactics. Whether it is Ian Ferguson who said that "the flaming Linux bigots should take a backseat", Mohit Joshi, who equaled GNU to communism or the more recently Bruce Byfield, who obviously couldn't take the heat anymore and decided to proclaim unilaterally that all bloggers who don't agree with him are automatically "conspiracy theorists".
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Proprietary software is untrustworthy and harms society
"No matter how glib and sarcastic the proprietor, proprietary software denies users the freedoms to inspect, share, and modify the program. Users of Adobe’s proprietary Creative Suite software recently discovered that the program communicates over the network with a machine apparently owned by Omniture, a company that tracks web usage..."
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Richard Stallman - The Santa of Software
But today while reading Glyn Moody's Rebel Code, I came across this paragraph that describe about the hero of free software, Mr Richard Matthew Stallman, that I would really like to quote and share with you:
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The Free Software Movement and the Future of Freedom: We urgently need people to work on "stage 2"
RMS (Zagreb on March 9th 2006): "... Many people suggest a two stage solution. They say, first, let's teach people to use Free Software, and then, once they're using it, we'll teach people to appreciate the freedom.
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Richard Stallman on the GNOME Desktop
"...GNOME is a desktop environment, but it is not just a desktop
environment. It is also based on a philosophy of free software and
freedom. That philosophy sometimes yields specific ethical reasons
for making specific technical choices. To someone who thinks only in terms of technology, these might seem like "favoritism", but favoring the ethical (or what leads to it) over the unethical is right and proper..."
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