"...In October Stallman will visit Australia to speak — among other events — at UNSW’s Clancy Auditorium in an event being supported by National ICT Australia. But we got in touch with Stallman ahead of time for a chat about the Government’s internet filter project, free software and why he likes to visit Australia for its parrots..."

[…] this does result in the paradoxical situation that the GNU GPL actually *depends* on copyright, an intellectual monopoly, in order to spread intellectual freedom. Moreover, it seems to doom free software into a kind of symbiosis with copyright, forcing it to remain a supporter of that monopoly, since without it, the approach used to make the GPL so powerful would not work.

The older I get, the more certain I am that most discussions consist of arguing over half-truths. In fact, the more strongly everyone argues, the more likely that nobody has the complete truth. And nowhere does these hard-won truisms seem more accurate than in the age-old argument over whether the operating system we all live by should be called Linux or GNU/Linux.

"...Cancel ACTA entirely. Although parts of it are not objectionable, they are secondary to ACTA's threat to our freedom. Unless we are sure that the repressive aspects of ACTA are blocked, the main significance of ACTA is as a threat to society. Killing ACTA would be a fine way to get rid of this threat..."

"BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Wednesday, June 16, 2010 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today published a new declaration calling for rejection of ACTA unless key changes to protect the public's freedom are made, and is asking people around the world to add their names in support before the next round of negotiations on the treaty happen in Switzerland at the end of this month..."

Welcome to my new ComputerWorldUK blog, where I'll aim to bring you regular dispatches from the front lines of the free and open source software revolution. Starting out with news seems smart, so I'll use this post to announce my new job.

A very recent talk from Professor Eben Moglen .

The free software community understands that free software gives the user more freedom than proprietary software. Proprietary software confines its users, prohibits them from making changes that would allow everyone to benefit, etc. Free software advocates (myself included) have a habit of claiming that using free (libre) software means the same thing as having freedom.