The discussions around SOPA have shown a very unfortunate side of United States policymaking — that its policymakers are not the slightest afraid of legislatively ordering American-run corporations to sabotage their customers in order to further United States foreign policy.
Read more »American Corporate Software Can No Longer Be Trusted For Anything
New US cybersecurity bill could threaten free software
RMS recently called our attention to the Homeland Security Cyber and Physical Infrastructure Protection Act of 2010. This bill, currently being considered in a House subcommittee, has the potential to threaten free software.
Read more »Most americans support an Internet kill switch
Sixty-one percent of Americans said the President should have the ability to shut down portions of the Internet in the event of a coordinated malicious cyber attack, according to research by Unisys.
Read more »Category: Government Tags:
Why Free Software Movement must get involved in Internet Privacy Workshop: 8 and 9 December 2010
« The Internet Architecture Board (IAB), World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Internet Society (ISOC) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will hold a joint Internet privacy workshop on 8 and 9 December 2010 at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts on the question: How Can Technology Help to Improve Privacy on the Internet? ...»
Read more »Software Freedom Day In The Free State!
"Well it is that time of year again! Software Freedom Day is September 18th! This year the Ubuntu Maryland Local Community Team will again be holding a day of talks and discussions about Free Software at the Miller Branch of our co-sponsors the Howard County Library! ..."
Read more »U.S. Representatives Urge Net Neutrality
"...A group of Representatives from the U.S. Congress have sent the FCC a letter to keep the pressure on for net neutrality. Representatives Ed Markey (D-MA), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Jay Inslee (D-WA), all of whom are members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent FCC chair Julius Genachowski the letter..."
Read more »Category: Government Tags:
EFF wins enormous victory against DRM
The Electronic Frontier Foundation drove three deep wedges into the US prohibition on breaking DRM today.
Read more »OSS: Europe vs. The United States
Neelie Kroes is IT Chief for Europe and a staunch proponent of Open Source Software. A previous Linux Journal article made mention of her recent comments on OSS vs. proprietary software:
Read more »Category: Government Tags:
How about a legal penalty for hindering fair use?
Brazil has proposed a broad update to its copyright law (Portuguese) and it contains a surprising idea: penalize anyone who "hinders or impedes" fair use rights or obstructs the use of work that has already fallen into the public domain.
Read more »Category: Legal Tags:
Wikipedia To Build Second U.S. Data Center
"The Wikimedia Foundation plans to build a new data center in the coming year to improve its site availability, the group revealed in its business plan for 2010-2011..."
Read more »Free Art License
«Free Art Licence (or FAL) is a contract that applies the “copyleft” concept to artistic creation of all kinds, without formal or aesthetic discrimination of any kind. If you or your artworld call it art, you can protect it under FAL by making it free.
Read more »FSF Opposes More Copyright Enforcement in Joint Strategic Plan
The United States' newly-created "Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator" asked for public comments on a Joint Strategic Plan to make copyright enforcement more effective. The FSF submitted an argument that the government should adopt free software and encourage its use elsewhere to provide more freedom to computer users and reduce the need for such enforcement.
Read more »Open-Source Software: Bad, Evil and Un-American
Red Hat? SUSE Linux? Apache? MySQL? These are bad, evil, un-American entities. Apparently. They and the rest of those dirty rotten open-source software scoundrels are responsible for a "tidal wave of losses in U.S. jobs and competitiveness."
Read more »Category: Government Tags:
US copyright lobby claims free software undermines respect for intellectual property
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) wants countries such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam to be placed on the US government's blacklist of copyright sinners for supporting open source software
Read more »Richard Stallman @ RIT February 23rd 2010
«The good news – It’s official – RMS will be at RIT on Tuesday, February 23 from 10:30-12:30 am [...] I asked and was told that they will be setting up video in other rooms, but I’m going to suggest you contact RIT and ask them to find a bigger space and/or stream the talk live...»
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