Sheffield Public Meeting: Free as in Freedom
Chris | 07.10.2003 14:49 | WSIS 2003 | Technology | Sheffield
On Saturday the 25th of October at 12 p.m. Richard Stallman will give a lecture about Software Patents in the Stoddart Building at Sheffield Hallam University.
The recent demonstrations at the EU parliament and the success of the amendments to the proposals on software patents probably represent a turning point in the radicalisation of the Free software movement - links are being forged with the rest of the movement.
Richard Stallman (or RMS as he often known as) launched the GNU project over 20 years ago:
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/26/1423205
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=771%40mit-eddie.UUCP&output=gplain
Since then GNU/Linux has become the dominant computer operating system in several computer industry sectors and it is generally considered to be the main threat to Microsoft's domination of the desktop.
If you don't know much about the ideas of the Free Software Foundation the 'Philosophy of the GNU Project' page is a good place to start reading:
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/
The next big row around issues raised by Free software will probably happen at the UN's WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) conference in Geneva at December, for which RMS has written this document for the Patents civil society group:
http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/pcip/plenary/pct-talk.pdf
More information on software patents in Europe can be found on the FFII site:
http://swpat.ffii.org/
This meeting is being sponsored by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (TheIEE) South Yorkshire Branch and Business Link South Yorkshire (BLSY) with some further help from members of Sheffield Linux User's Group: http://www.sheflug.co.uk/
There are two Linux users groups in Sheffield - I'm on the SlugBug list because the SLUG list is run by someone who kicks people off it based on personal whims:
http://www.email-lists.org/mailman/listinfo/slugbug
Richard Stallman (or RMS as he often known as) launched the GNU project over 20 years ago:
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/26/1423205 http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=771%40mit-eddie.UUCP&output=gplain Since then GNU/Linux has become the dominant computer operating system in several computer industry sectors and it is generally considered to be the main threat to Microsoft's domination of the desktop.
If you don't know much about the ideas of the Free Software Foundation the 'Philosophy of the GNU Project' page is a good place to start reading:
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/ The next big row around issues raised by Free software will probably happen at the UN's WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) conference in Geneva at December, for which RMS has written this document for the Patents civil society group:
http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/pcip/plenary/pct-talk.pdf More information on software patents in Europe can be found on the FFII site:
http://swpat.ffii.org/ This meeting is being sponsored by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (TheIEE) South Yorkshire Branch and Business Link South Yorkshire (BLSY) with some further help from members of Sheffield Linux User's Group:
http://www.sheflug.co.uk/ There are two Linux users groups in Sheffield - I'm on the SlugBug list because the SLUG list is run by someone who kicks people off it based on personal whims:
http://www.email-lists.org/mailman/listinfo/slugbug
Chris
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Tickets
14.10.2003 14:56
See
Timothy Baldwin
e-mail:
T.E.Baldwin99@members.leeds.ac.uk
FFII UK
19.10.2003 17:26
UK minister likely to vote to annul Parliament decision.
Write to your MP today -- or the software industry gets it!
The FFII is calling for all supporters to write to their local MP -- this weekend.
In September the European Parliament voted for strong restrictions on software patents. But these could be set aside at a meeting of the EU's Competitiveness Council of Ministers on 10 November. The ministers' meeting is to be "prepared" at a meeting of senior patent officials from across Europe even sooner: this Thursday 23 October.
If they are not convinced otherwise before 10 November, it is believed that UK ministers will push for the Council to adopt a November 2002 draft text, which is even worse than the infamous McCarthy report. The European Parliament's rules for second reading make it very difficult for MEPs to fix a bad text from the Council.
Link of alert:
FFII