pipka.org

I am on a roll! After Brazil I have been inspired, I’ve written some stuff up about WSIS and FISL (to be blogged over the weekend), and I’ve got my head together with some stuff for LA over the next 6 months. I learnt a lot in Brazil, most of all the importance of actually contributing something. I want to start a Free Knowledge repository _and_ a telecentre deployment in Australia. I have started to look around in Australia and realise we have real problems here as well as the capacity and resources to fix them (at least in part). Giving everyone equal opportunity can seem an idealistic dream, but we can come close. By giving people access to something better than they may otherwise get, you are increasing the opportunities for that person, that individual. By improving our communications, idependent media and the free knowledge available, we can begin to break down the systems that pigeon-holed us years ago. We have 4000 machines sitting with ComputerBank NSW atm, affiliations with many groups, many wonderful volunteers, many skills and ideas and a whole lot of energy (when we get riled up 🙂 so what are we waiting for?

I think people are starting to wake up, and it is amazing how much people want to contribute once they are given the opportunity. I believe it is human nature to give, but that nature is suppressed by our upbringing which says “NO! You must be secretive, and protect yourself, and did we mention dog eat dog!”. Anyway, more and more people are seeing beyond that, and it is refreshing 🙂

The free knowledge project I want to help with, would hopefully fill that niche, giving a very low-tech solutions that anyone can contribute to easily. It would hopefully include two components, one for collaborative development, and one for simply finding data. Google is great, except it is hard to judge Quality (see Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), relevance, and up to date-ness quickly, making the tool very hard. I imagine a system where we have easy to read summaries, dates, headings, relevant links, and a rating system that the initial rater and then the users can add to, giving the searcher some idea. Something that has ‘tracks’ so that a single entry may be relevant to several areas, and will show up under several areas. Something easy to traverse to a track of interest. There has been discussions started on this, email me if you are interested in such a thing 🙂 It is still very fuzzy, although there seems to be enough interest and momentum to make it work 🙂 pia at linux.org.au

Now, I had better clarify for everyone that doesn’t know, we have moved the wedding from the tentative November to next April, the weekend before LCA2005 (man, we are SUCH geeks ). More details as they come up, but we are trying to figure out a way to include as many people as want to come, without having to morgage the parents’ houses 🙂

Now this is the funniest thing I’ve heard for AGES!!! Microsoft are suing the Minister of IT in Brazil, Sergio Amadeu for saying Microsoft are drug dealers 🙂 He has compared Microsoft to drug dealers when they are offering 1 year free licences, because it is like offering the first hit for free.

I have to say, I completely agree. There was an organisation in Australia who were refurbishing old computers with old versions of windows, and then giving the computers to the poor. Microsoft sued them for licence violation, saying they should have bought more licences (ie – no one can use a perfectly good second hand licence?) and then Mircosoft offered free for one year licences to the people being donated machines. Sound stupid? IT IS! How on earth were people who can’t afford machines in the first place going to come up with the ridiculous fees for a licence after a year, and then every few years after that?

At least Brazil has the gumption to say what everyone else is thinking. At WSIS Brazil was speaking about how important it is to have electronic election voting on an open source system, so that it can be checked for any rigging. He mentioned that if the last US elections had been run on open source software, then maybe we wouldn’t be having so many wars right now. The response was hilarious, even the uptight pollies who usually are so somber were chuckling to themselves.

For all the mans later disasters, he certainly had some interesting ideas to start.

“The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system; this is an objective law independent of man’s will. However much the reactionaries try to hold back the wheel of history, eventually revolution will take place and will inevitably triumph.”

“We can assuredly build a socialist state with modern industry, modern agriculture, and modern science and culture.”

“The revolutionary war is a war of the masses; only mobilizing the masses and relying on them can wage it.”

Woo hoo! 🙂 Over the last 6 months we have seen a complete turn around of ACS (Australian Computer Society), in large because of the President Edward Mandla who has a rabid interest in Open Source. Edward seemed to feel that Open Source has a great future, without knowing exactly what it is. Enter the community! I was approached to help ACS get some policy on Open Source, and I pulled together some of the Open Source community to advise ACS including people from several LUGs, AUUG, ACS, and some legal support. We published our drafts to the linux-aus mailing list, spoke to several organisations on it, and came up with some suggestions for ACS, as a team. We were happy to work with ACS, and I wish more organisations would turn to the community for their information on Open Source. It is where the expertise is, after all 🙂

The ACS Policy was presented to the public about 2 weeks ago. Enjoy 🙂

The Free Software Act is a relatively new project pioneered by Maureen O’Sullivan in conjunction with the Free Software Consortium. It is certainly an interesting approach to the legal protection of Free Software and Free Software developers. I believe Maureen is very much on the right track, and between Maureen and Lessig, we have a good chance. But… I believe that both only provide part of the solution and both projects should be looked at for what they can do, and how they can be supported. Version 3 of the FSA is currently up, and hopefully version four should include protections for issues such as our patents and anti-circumvention fears.

Rock on Maureen! Good luck!

Just when you think it is all quite wierd, we tumble further down the rabbit hole. So post Howard going on his little “kiss some Bush ass and help strongarm the US-AUS FTA in American political circles” trip, where he has completely! ignored any potential negative impact from the FTA on Australia (the results from the enquiry weren’t even published yet), he does it again. Howard and Bill Gates will be meeting a a secret location to do some sort of negotiation. Now if Gates was coming here to meet with someone in the ICT field, I could kind of understand, but WTF is our Prime Minister meeting with him for? How much do we need to see that corporate interests are driving politics in our ‘western’ cultures. Is Gates making some deal while Howard has some chance in implementing it? I mean Howard is after all completely in their pockets, and he may not be in power much longer (if we have anything to do with it right?). Standing back and looking at the last few years, we’ve seen a steady push away from socialism to corporatism, and in the last couple of years we have seen our democratically elected Prime Minister go completely against the wishes of the australian people several times. How much more will we put up with this blatant abuse of our system…

We all like to believe that at least we are a free politically, but are we, and how would we know.

Note – these are entirely my personal thoughts and don’t reflect on any organisation I am with :)>

I think that it is time we started looking at this more seriously. Why is it that knowledge has become a money maker, why is it that people wanting to teach 4th grade math, or university biology have to pay for the knowledge. I completely agree with paying for the courses, and degree, as teachers have to be paid, but the actual knowledge should be freely available. In Brazil, Free Knowledge has become a really big political issue, and I think it makes sense that we reconsider it. Why should children in richer countries have an educational advantage, I’m considering helping out on some of the projects already doing this, as it would also be a good platform to have a single repository for case studies, slides, how to public speak ad all the advocacy tools we need to make a difference. Each package (such as the case study package) could have a maintainer and then everyone has someone central to commit their information tob.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, but right now I’m going to travel from Christchurch to Dunedin in NZ with Glynn for some sightseeing, before catching up with the NZ crew (Mike Beattie and that) before I go home to Aus.

Maddog was the last and I was so glad to meet him. I’ve been missing him at several conferences, and we had a great chat about all things 🙂 Many people are worried about the patents issues, and frankly I’m worried too. We seriously need to make sure there is sufficient information out so that the US-AUS FTA doesn’t pass in government. We will be in so much trouble, as will Australian industry if it does. I think the problem is one that will come up inevitably anyway, but the FTA compounds the matter.

Maureen O’Sullivan has come up with some interesting thoughts. That authors of software should be protected against litigation of unknowledgable infringement of copyright or patents, and that free software should not be subject to software methodology patents, as it is in the best publics interest. An interesting argument, akin to the council being able to put a highway thought your garden if it is in the best interests of the public. Ownership not being total 🙂

Going to Sao Paulo now, to give another talk. Am quite happy with how everything has gone, and will blog in a few days of everything. Simply no time!

Bdale has said he’ll come to the wedding in November if it is middle to late november 😀 YAY!

I have to say, that I was not so impressed with Lessigs talk, it lacked any real substance, although I understand he only just got there before his talk. Maureen however, had a legal talk that rocked everyones world 🙂

ROOOOOCCCKKK!!!!!

OK, so I have been at the conferences in Brazil for 6 days now. I managed to catch the last few days of DebConf, which was awesome. Saw some talks, met the SSDP (Super Secret Debian Project) crew and lots of people I have so much respect and admiration for, some I had known online before and many kewl dudes I had not 🙂 I met up with Mako, Enrico, Thom (!), Martin, and my elected mentor, Bdale, who still rocks and inspires me. I also met up with some of the SkoleLinux guys, (playing ‘Liar’, a card game till 5 in the morning), and some more of Jeffs work mates, who were a great group and a lot of fun! I’ve had a Brazilian BBQ, pizza (they bring you slices of everything imaginable, including banana! Sweet!)

I learnt 3 new card games, including one I’m sure if I speak about it, the mafia or someone will be after me. I keep expecting to get in trouble now, so thankyou to that group of people for my induced paranoia. Whoops! Speaking! 😉

I met two awesome people, Lalo and Mai. They are an interesting pair, who used to be married. Mai has shown us so much kewl stuff of Brazil, of its people and night life. She is such a giving person, and we certainly owe her for showing us all a good time! 😀

There were some amazing women there too which was pretty kewl. Erinn Clark – a debian chick, Bielle – an anthropologist, Mika – interested in Medical and software patents, & Maureen O’Sullivan who is staying in my hotel (and is a crazy fun Irish woman, she rocks 😉 As well of course as the many Brazilian women. A big part of this years FISL was a women in free software track, organised in large part by Fernanda and Loimar. The track has been successful so far, but the welcome and warmth of these women, coupled with their excitement to see people like Erinn, Amia (sp?), Maureen, and myself around has been amazing. I have had so many pictures taken it is unbelievable. It is awesome to think I am helping these people, a little scary in part, but wonderful to be part of a happening and positive movement.

I truly believe we in Australia have a lot to learn from these people. They are so open and warm, so interested in their rights both politically and socially, so proud of their heritage and culture.

Sorry, this is a long blog, but so much is happening! So come FISL, and so much to do! I saw Enrico, Mako, Bdale, and a few other talks today, I spoke yesterday to over 300 people, who loved the talk (phew), and I’ve met Sulamita and Joice which is great 🙂 I’ve met some big names like Maureen, George Greve, Sergio Armedeus (amazing man!), Marcelo Branco, Larry Lessig (almost), & Maddog (finally! we kept missing each other at conferences, he is just as kewl as I thought ). It has been a great day!

To finish today off, we all went to a concert by Gilberto Bil, the Minister of Culture here is Brazil. He is so good, and the music is great. He also spoke today on Free Software, and the man really knows his stuff. Maureen is in heaven 😉

Well, my first day anyway 🙂 Debconf has been going for several days now. Caught up with several people, and met Erinn Clark, who is pretty kewl. She’s doing a talk on Women in Debian which should be interesting, and I spoke to her about GNURIAS and LinuxChix. Who knows, maybe we’ll start something really positive 🙂
Saw an rocking talk by Mako and Enrico, it was AWESOME, all about how how to take over the world using Custom Debian Distributions 🙂 Enrico is such an active speaker, a funny dude 🙂 More to come…