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I thought it was a great movie. As an American, I still discovered a lot of information that I was unaware of. I expected this, since the mainstream media isn't covering a lot of important news (CNN yesterday talked half the day about one of the Olson twins' having annorexia, and MSNBC couldn't stop harping about Brittney Spears marriage).

I read a lot of independent news online and have a subscription to London's Financial Times and still, there were lots of revealing info in the movie that took me by surprise.

Everyone, especially in America, regardless of political affilliation, should see this movie.

An important point here is that there are quite a few groups of people out there that hate the United States and their allies. These groups, these people, are consumed by their hate. They are hate. So it stands to reason, at least some, hate each other.

Proof of the Al-Qaeda / Saddam relationship.

Still hungry? Iraq is a refuge to terrorists now. Infact, its their staging point. Al-Qaeda associate Zarqawi did a little damage today in Baghdad.

And remember, theres a little difference between map geography and ideology. In the middle east, as we all know, polar opposites sit in close proximity (so don't blame the country of Saudi Arabia). Although I think the kind of policies they institute foster the environment that breeds terrorism and western hate.

Don't take our countries word against Saddam. Putin warned us of Saddam's regime planning (terrorism? This would be a declared war i'd think) attacks against us.

Was he trying to grow a bigger mustache than Hitler? Lets not forget what an evil man he was, and how the media quickly forgets the attrocities and in some cases, covering up for him.CNN Exec Admits Covering Up 'Maniac' Saddam's Atrocities / Access of Evil. READ THIS ARTICLE. Be thankful we are in a country of freedom.

We are only scratching the surface of this demon. Remember, not much was known about the gassing of the Jews until well after it happened (and they didn't have CNN burying it)

That's odd, toothless legislative spam fixes never got vetoed in the past just because they'd do nothing to stop the problem - or make it worse. Wonder what makes this one so special?

Bush IS doing something about those jobs, from the 17th green !

still at least GWB outsourced torture, wouldnt want blood on American hands now would we ?

now stop whining and let the man who has spent 50% of his presidency on holiday get back to the real issues at hand, like sinking that putt.

"The Bush administration on Monday renewed its attack on the European Commission's decision against Microsoft, but insisted that US-European Union antitrust co-operation was as strong as ever."

It seems the US government IS looking to protect Microsoft.

Atari has apparently decided to cut back on video game titles by 20% and the number of PC games to only 20%. Driv3r isn't going to help this company as they go down, down, and further down, Interplay style. Not that I'm bitter.

There was a recent front page story in London's Financial Times newspaper last week which is another reason why France might be particularly frustrated with the US. It seems the United States is blocking some of the European states from freezing the accounts of a notorious arms smuggler named Victor Bout (Google him and freak out) who they now claim to be working with in Iraq, even though ironically, this guy has been suspected of selling weapons to Al-Qaeda. Not one single story on this was picked up by the American media. No wonder France is outraged. There is a lot of very critical news happening that Americans aren't aware of.

France wants to shut down a notorious arms trader who has been supplying terrorists for years and the United States is protecting him. This is a story people need to know about.

1. Environmental regulations preventing the building of new refineries.

Oh, of courrrse.... A lack of refineries makes their input product (crude oil) more expensive? Shouldn't a lack of demand drive down the price of a supplied good? Perhaps you flunked the supply and demand portion of macroeconomics.

2. Environmental regulations forcing specialized, region-specific formulations across the country.

This effects the $40/barrel price of crude oil how? Hell, it doesn't even effect the gas price of people outside of those regions much, and if it did, the answer would be to adopt the better standards rather than to increase the smog in the big cities.

3. OPEC fighting against us in Iraq with the one effective weapon they have.

It seems that in talks to increase production. Only Venezuela and Iran are vocally against this.

PC World

Forbes

FT.com (A good one!)

In more exciting news, Nokia is releasing an improved version of their wildly successful N-Gage!

I know most people here are laughing at the thought of anyone stupid enough to buy into this IPO. But all it takes are a few ignorant or greedy fund managers to pump this stock. This is why I generally invest in blue-chip stocks or market index mutual funds over standard funds, which these days seem to be corrupt.

I think there's maybe six or seven financial investment companies that haven't been sanctioned by the SEC in the last two years for unethical activity. You can't trust the American media to even let you know when your investment company has been fined $200M for insider trading. The best source for really finding out how sleazy Wall Street is is through England's Financial Times, which doesn't pull any punches. If you have an IRA or any money in funds, keep a close eye on it. These rich fund managers are making a fortune off the pennies most working people scrounge up and think will be there for them in the future.

I never really dabbled much in the market until recently when I had a broker "friend" make recommendations for me. After I lost a bundle, I set up my own account on E*Trade and started doing my own investing - I beat my broker's ROI by 14% within six months. I'm pretty convinced these days most people in the financial community don't know anything, but that doesn't mean a bunch of people won't make money in this Gator IPO, but it will probably be at mutual fund holders' expense.

My advice to people is take control of your finances and invest in companies you believe in. Pull your money out of funds so you're not unwittingly financing SCO or Gator -- you'd be surprised how often you're in bed with the devil through your IRA.

Officials from China, South Korea and Japan meet in Beijing today to map out plans to promote the Linux computer operating system and other "open source" software as alternatives to the products of US software giant Microsoft.

The meeting reflects the deep concern among Asian countries over the virtual monopoly enjoyed by Microsoft's Windows operating system and its Office suite of software. Officials hope its grip on the market can be challenged in the region by Linux.

Financial Times Article: HP to install Linux in Asian products

They don't even make $500 or $1000 bills anymore either.

Ben Franklin on the US$100 is as high as you can go in the USA (which is weird given that there's been considerable inflation since they stopped printing the very large denomination bills. I remember growing up in the 1960's when a $20 bill was considered "large", enough to buy most of a weeks groceries for a family.).

But, they do make Euro 500 notes.

Some authorities were concerned about this because these higher denomination bills make it easier for cash to be transported around for illegal purposes.

At one point I had heard that bundles of US$100 bills weighed in around 11 lbs per million dollars and that for quick calculations during drug busts they would simply weigh the money.

Carrying around bundles of E500 notes would certainly make money movement easier.

But it looks as if there is opposition to the large beasts.

It's proven, eh?

So where's your control for your experiment? Where's the repeatability?

And scientists can't be biases? Then why did Denmark set up Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty? Which, when it reviewed a book by Bjorn Lomborg" The Skeptical Environmentalist" was "clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice".

But wait, a review of the DCSD's finding ( see here and here) found that was a "clear mistake" that the committee had failed to give Mr Lomborg an opportunity to defend himself and the DCSD judgment was not backed up by documentation, and was "completely void of argumentation" for the claims of dishonesty and lack of good scientific practice.

The best quote? the committee's judgment had used "condescending and emotional" language

Something like saying If you disagree, you are wrong, perhaps?

India attacks US on plan to ban outsourcing

India attacks US on plan to ban outsourcing
By Khozem Merchant in Mumbai
Published: January 25 2004 19:11 | Last Updated: January 25 2004 19:11

India's technology industry has attacked proposed new US legislation that bans the outsourcing of federal work to low cost countries arguing it is a protectionist measure contrary to the spirit of free trade.

The move by the US Senate coincides with decisions by a number of foreign companies to halt further outsourcing to India because of a new domestic tax ruling that would enable the Indian government to tax part of their worldwide earnings.

The US bill, which was passed by the Senate of Friday but has still to be signed by President George W. Bush before it becomes law, is the most significant attempt to stop outsourcing, a fast-growing industry trend that has led to the loss of thousands of highly-paid technology jobs in the US and become a hot political issue in a US election year.

Although US federal contracts account for only 2 per cent of India's IT earnings, the bill sends a worrying message to the Indian outsourcing industry, which has been lobbying hard to stave off protectionism.

Arun Shourie, Indian's information technology minister, said the bill damaged the outlook for talks on freer multilateral trade. Kiran Karnik, president of Nasscom, the umbrella body for Indian IT, said he "hoped wiser counsel would prevail" before the law was enacted.

The revenues from India's technology industry are forecast to expand by a third to $15.5bn in the year to March, with two-thirds of the growth coming from the US, as more companies in North America and elsewhere leverage India's high IT skills and low costs.

But US companies such as JP Morgan and General Electric, which have outsourced thousands of jobs to India, could be casualties of the controversial rule on the taxable status of foreign companies' outsourced units. This week Nasscom said three unidentified foreign companies with back office operations in India had frozen future outsourcing until "there was clarity".

The government circular, which is binding on the tax-collecting authorities, says a foreign company's global income would be taxable under India's double-tax treaties if that company's outsourced unit in India carries out "core revenue-generating activities." Non-core activities conducted at arm's length and at fair market value would be exempt.

Accountants say the ruling introduces artificial distinctions between core and non-core work. "This raises technical ambiguities that could lead to litigation," said one tax expert.

Experts say an accepted principle of global accounting norms is that double-tax treaties override domestic tax regulations. Foreign companies could therefore appeal to double tax pacts, which prevent the imposition of taxes from different countries on the same business, to circumvent the circular.

Nasscom has protested to the Indian government, arguing the measure is contrary to the government's tax-friendly stance towards a nascent, job-creating industry.

Here are some great sources for news online:

Financial Times - FT a good example of actual "news reporting" (as opposed to "news creating" exhibited by most companies). As a result of the commercial influence in all aspects of society nowadays, it makes perfect sense that some of the financial news sources may now be the most objective source of information. Check out this wonderful site and newspaper.

PR Watch - This site is run by the Center for Media & Democracy is a nonprofit, public interest organization funded by individuals and nonprofit foundations and dedicated to investigative reporting on the public relations industry. The Center serves citizens, journalists and researchers seeking to recognize and combat manipulative and misleading PR practices. There is an excellent weekly newsletter you can subscribe to from this site which summarizes news stories and special issues where media coverage was manipulated.

Disinfopedia - a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. More than 2500 articles outlining information and credentials on key individuals and entities involved with public policy and other areas. This is a great resource to look up the history of people in the news.

Link TV - The first national network offering a global perspective on news, current events and culture, presenting viewpoints seldom covered in the U.S. media. We present first-run documentaries on global issues, current affairs series, international news, classic foreign feature films, and the best of world music. Link TV's programming, combined with innovative use of two-way digital link-ups and our participatory web site, deepens audience engagement and encourages active participation. If you have DirecTV, this network is channel 375 - ask your cable provider if they do not make this network available - it's worth it!

Democratic Underground - What has turned out to be a polarized web site has become a watchdog for the mainstream media, the Democratic Underground exposes the hypocrisy and sleaziness in the media. Check this site out folks -- with references (something you do not find on conservative sites)

CorpWatch - A great site for information on the nefarious activities of multinational corporations. Want to find out who's paid off whom? Which governments are under the influence of which corporations? Little-known corporate relationships that explain unusual social or political events? This is the site to check.

Adbusters - In our society it has become increasingly difficult to separate editorial from advertising and many argue there is no longer a distinction. This site addresses the social changes in how people are educated by addressing the impact of news and the advertising media and exposes the propaganda campaigns. Very good reading, and in many cases, shockingly thought-provoking!

Common Dreams News Center - Billed as "Breaking news & views for the Progressive community",
this site endeavors to carry stories that the mainstream media may either not be reporting, or not telling all sides.

Canadian Broadcast Corporation - Canada's state-owned news service is widely regarded as one of the most objective sources of information.

Independent Media Center - A good source for news stories that the mainstream doesn't pick up. This site is particularly sensitive to the influence corporate America has over what is and is

Wow... you're really carrying the party line there, huh?

No more than you are...

In reality, we don't know who is organizing and executing these attacks.

We have some pretty big clues.

Given the hatred of the US in certain parts of Iraq, it could just be random farmers picking up weapons and capping servicemen while they sit in traffic

Nobody disputes that some Iraqi's hate the US, and that those people are probably taking part in the attacks on our troops. I do believe, however, that these people are in the minority. I base that belief off of conversations I have had with Iraqi coworkers and from various articles on the subject.

So you don't think that the Supreme Court's invention of a new job for itself - The Decider of Tough Elections - was scandalous.

They didn't decide the election, they decided that selective had recounts are not constitutional, and those selective recounts that Gore was asking for wouldn't have changed the outcome anyway (Source).

I tend to think the voters should decide the election, not a bunch of potentially partisan judges

They did. The votes were counted. Twice.

We've got election protocol so that this sort of influence is supposedly impossible.

Right. Like the Florida statute that required the vote counts to be certified by November 26th.

Actually, we're not turning over control on that date... what we're doing is changing the name of the occupation.

Whatever. They are going to complete a bill of rights by February, hold elections for members of the national assembly in May, and those people take office in June. And with a fledgling police force and a disserting army, maybe the Iraqi's will still want a US presence there...

We begin with two equations from the first session of the course: Knowledge = power Time = money and combine them with an equation from the first law of thermodynamics: Power = work/time Whence: Money = time = work/power = work/knowledge Ergo (or hence if you haven't the benefit of a classical education):

• The less you know the more you will be paid.
• Managers know much less than engineers.
• So managers are much better paid than engineers.
• Best move from engineering into management (and thousands do).

source

Is anybody else worried that this might turn into another Corel?

Corel died because Microsoft wanted them to.

Corel had a great plan but, ultimately, management was bought out by Billy.

People don't seem to be picking up on this. The same thing happened with Apple and OSX right after Steve Jobs dumped every last share in the company (aside from the single "symbolic" share that he did keep).

Microsoft owns each and every one of us. If they didn't, we'd have seen them split up a long time ago...

sigh...

There is a good article in The Financial Times today about the future of music and the threat from music downloads.

It's coming there is no doubt about it. At last with the ipod we have a usable MP3 player and with iTunes a service that can mean you can be legal... But will the record labels be able to move in and dominate the online distribution industry before it even begins?

I certainly question their expertise in this area and perhaps an online retailer is better to deal with the customer than through these dinosaurs. In any case they squandered millions on rubbish plastic acts over the last decade and I sincerely hope that the online world opens up the field to other (quality) musicians...

"Compatibility with older Xbox software could be provided by emulation technology Microsoft acquired in February from Connectix, which sells Virtual PC, allowing Intel-based software to run on PowerPC chips."

The Financial Times has the best summary of this that I've read so far.

as mentioned in Financial Times, Microsoft will likely be using their recently acquired Virtual PC software. This software is the way mac users run windows software on PPC chips. VPC technology will allow MS to provide backwards compatibility under Intel emulation.

The Ledger (NY Times business section) - Microsoft and Google: Partners or Rivals?
'Microsoft - desperate to capture a slice of the popular and ad-generating search business - approached Google within the last two months to discuss options, including the possibility of a takeover.'

Financial Times (business section) - Google approached by Microsoft for takeover
'The approach "gained little traction" , according to the report, with Google indicating that it preferred to pursue an initial public offering.'

CNN Money - Microsoft courting Google
'Microsoft may still be interested in pursuing the Web search company at a later date' (The page title is 'Mr. Softee Courting Google' despite the article heading.)

It appears that Microsoft is trying to threaten Google with "If you don't merge with us, we'll make MSN search built into Longhorn, and everybody will use it instead of you because they won't know any better." To Google's credit, they think they can do a better job, find new and interesting areas to innovate, and generally tell Microsoft to suck it. The real question remains: Will Google be as good once they are a public company?

Google was founded in 1998 as Google Incorporated, not as Google Corporation; unlike many startups with plans to go public, that status hasn't been changed since, which indeed means financial details are (and can legally remain) undisclosed.

On these grounds, it would be interesting what the author bases his assertion on that Google is actually profitable. -- I don't deny they might be, all I am saying is we don't know any official numbers. Normally, if you're planning to invest in a corporation, you can ask for their annual report to help you make up your mind. With non-corporations, it appears you have to rely on blind trust and gossip. Remember that whatever the income, they must have huge monthly bills to pay for the excellent staff they have hired and the huge commodity hardware clusters they run (electricity, replacements of nodes, operators). Anybody dare to post their xcalc(1) spreadsheet with estimates for upper and lower bounds of their expenses?

Yes, I would like to buy some Google shares online for a fixed price, but not in an auction. I suppose if they were to adopt the e-bay way, any clever investor would simply wait with their stock purchase until the release of Microsoft's forthcoming search engine...

Slightly offtopic, but did you hear who won the Nobel Literature Prize this year? I was listening to the radio and heard the announcer say this man's name over and over again, and could have sworn he was saying something else... something much more sinister and horrifying.

The winner? Mr. Coetzee. I'm not making this up.

Now that's one body of work I'd think twice about perusing.

here

It appears to already have been settled.

Adults are also being blocked. And it is quite possible that they are doing research that may be blocked.

Justices Kennedy and Breyer joined the judgment because they believe adult patrons need only ask the librarian to 'please disable the filter' and need not provide any reason for the request.

ft
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ZDNET
e-insite

Financial Times has a small article just mentioning the outline:

"International Business Machines said it would ignore a threat by SCO Group, a small US software company, to recall a software licence on IBM's AIX operating system. [...] IBM has denied it violated its contract and said it would ignore SCO's Friday ultimatum."

Don't financial analysts need more info? Or, do they get the wealth of views on IT-business from Slashdot, too?!

that some other country wastes their money to figure out that the moon is one big rock that is pretty much as useless. we've already gone there.... we found rocks.... why waste more $$$ untill we actually have a USE for it beyond proving that we can go there. Sure, your average space geek will say that we should continue to explor space. But they forget that exploration costs $$$ that really should not be needlessly be throw at exploration when we have more than enough problems down here right now (did anyone happen to catch THIS which tends to overshadow the need for planting a flag on more planets. so yippie... the chinese want to go to the moon.... let em.... let them own the whole moon, let them put a big red star on it.

From the FT "At 79 cents per song, most of the cost would go to royalies paid to music labels. RealNetworks expects most of its profits to come from its subscription fees."

So *that* is why they are trying subscription.

Though FWIW, I would prefer the Apple model of no sub and just downloading the songs that I pay for. I can't imagine myself using the 9.99 subscription effectively - basically you'd want to be doing some serious searching for new music. As has been pointed out upthread, the sub model only works out if you are sampling the songs, having never heard them before, then paying for the ones that you like and want to keep. Considering how limited these catalogues tend to be (*very* mainstream) I doubt if I'd bother.

You know, I made a comment a short while ago about another Slashdot article. I observed that the author of the story referenced did not really care about an email tax to detract spam. His real goal was to try to help justify Internet sales tax. At the time I figured some bill would come out doing just that. Guess I was right.

What's with the weird profile angle or this obviously staged photo of Larry thinking. I like Larry Lessig's ideas a lot but maybe if he got some better photography he would win more Supreme court cases ;)

Just noticed on google news that a hoax about sars has caused some panic in hong kong.

I know that you shouldn't every thing you read online, and that any news between March 30 and April 3 should be met with suspicion, but not every one seems to know this. It is really unfortunate that a lot of people believe everything they read online.

Along with this and some of the jokes some sites are running I wonder we will begin to see some legal actions taken against this kinds of stuff. Gamespot's joke about EA exploiting this Gulf War might cause the company a negative back lash from those who don't get the joke.

US Marines killed 7 innocent women and children near Nayaf!!!!

Yes, I'm sure you won't see this news on the US media.

Microsoft has revealed for the first time that it has made profit margins of 85 per cent on its Windows system while its remaining businesses made losses, raising questions about the benefits of the group's costly efforts at diversification.

The client division, which markets Windows, generated operating profits last quarter of $2.48bn on revenues of $2.89bn, implying margins of 85 per cent.

Among Microsoft's other businesses, the home and entertainment di vision, which includes the Xbox games console, lost $177m in the quarter on revenues of $505m. Salomon Smith Barney estimates it loses about $120 on each console it sells.
MSN, the internet service provider and portal, lost $97m, down from losses of $199m in the same quarter last year, on revenues up from $431m to $531m.

The business solutions group, which provides software for small and medium-sized businesses and includes recent acquisitions Great Plains of the US and Navision of Denmark, lost $68m on revenues of $107m.

And the CE/Mobility division, which includes mobile telephone software and the Windows CE operating system for handheld computers, lost $33m on revenues of $17m.

The breakdown of financials by division was published for the first time in Microsoft's Form 10-Q filing to the Securities & Exchange Commission, presumably as a side-effect of corporate America's attempt at a post-Enron clean-up. For the period ended September 30th, the two cash cows of Client (i.e. Windows) and Information Worker (Office) produced operating income of $2.48 billion on revenue of $2.89 billion, and $1.88 billion on $2.38 billion respectively.

CE/Mobility only pulls in slightly more revenue and has slightly lower losses ($14 million in and $48 million out in 2001), and Xbox has resulted in a revenue boost plus a substantially increased loss for Home and Entertainment (the loss was $68 million on $236 million in 2001).

Looking further at the troubles with the e-gov-os conference and after reviewing the opinions of Bruce Perens, Richard Stallman, David Sugar, Jay Sulzburger, David Wheeler, Stanley Klein, Chalu Kim, Claus Srensen, Jason Faulkner, Russell McOrmond, Louis Suarez-Potts, David A. Hammond and others, comments which have expanded over 10 mailing lists, and which have generated a few hundred private emails to me in my private email box, I'm forced to draw several conclusions.

First, as President of NYLXS and President of New Yorkers for Fair Use, my primary concern is two fold:

First, in my role as President of NYLXS, my primary goal is to cater to the needs of the membership, and the extended constituency of the organization, the Free Software development community and users in the New York City area. In truth, all organizations have a primary responsibility to their constituencies. It is time for others to look at their constituency and see how they are serving them. An organization which doesn't serve a constituency is an organization in name only.

Secondly, as an individual citizen and active member of the Free Software movement, I'm concerned with broad policy decisions of others in regards to individual rights with in our digitalized communications network. I'm focused on practical activities which protect the freedom of individuals and empower individuals and communities in education, government and business.

These are the only two prisms in which I can view the planned events of EgovOS conference.

I tend to be very thorough and deliberate in my conclusions. When I work through the process of developing activities and actions, or when I write in regard to issues of importance in a proper fashion for publication, or when I give a formal opinion piece representing any of our organizations journals, radio shows, public speeches, or other formalized media outlets, I bring to bear on that presentation, not only thorough research of the issue and much consultation, but also my 30 years of political and practical experience in affecting positive political and social outcomes.

I bring this same effort to this current letter, which I am opening up to the public and which will be published on http://fairuse.nylxs.com and which will be included in the coming NYLXS Journal.

First, let's look at the stated goals of the sponsored event. As listed on htttp://www.egovos.org/, the goals of this conference is:

Open Source for National and Local eGovernment Programs in the U.S. and EU

Goals:

1. the presentation of best practices

2. raising awareness

3. sharing of experiences among policy makers, donors, users/consumers, universities, and industry specialists in Open Source, e-Government and related fields.

NYLXS has, for a couple of years, worked to sell Free Software on both the local, New York City Level and in the Federal Government. We'll had a variety of experiences in this regard, many of them very negative. As such, this conference seems to be important to the economic and political health of the NYLXS membership, including The Free Software Chamber of Commerce, our Public Educational initiative in New York City Public Schools, and New Yorkers for Fair Use. Our direct prosperity as a community is tied to the stated goals of the conference, and in fact, members of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce had prepared to make presentations at the conference. It was the concerns of members of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce which brought the problems which have enveloped the conference to my attention.

The main problem is the participation of Microsoft as a speaker and presenter at the conference. In a previous email, I have already listed the problems that Microsoft presents. But for the sake of making this a complete document, I will reiterate them and expand upon the Microsoft issue.

First of all, Microsoft is a reckless company which operates above the law. It has recently been convicted twice for antitrust activities, and has been guilty of numerous other illegal competitive practices which have gone without prosecution. http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_index.htm is a rundown of the current conviction of Microsoft for antitrust actions which is still going through the courts. Microsoft was not only determined have acted illegally in regard to browser technology, but they have also had their CEO, Bill Gates, lie under oath. The testimony can be searched here:

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/video/gates/

http://www.broadcast.com/news/billgates/

investigation of his perjury is here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24990.html

http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=A rticle&cid=FT3MLEDHF0D&live=true&useoverridetempla te=ZZZUGORQ00C&tagid=ZZZNSJCX70C&subheading=global

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/msdo j991107.html

They even doctored their prepared testimony which got much press:

http://www.idg.net/crd_microsoft_67162.html and to quote:

Chase's testimony last week struck a note similar to the previous week's fiasco over a Microsoft videotaped demonstration. Government attorney David Boies had scored by pointing out inconsistent details in a videotape, submitted by Microsoft as evidence, that showed that Microsoft had used multiple PCs to film a demo the company first implied was a seamless segment filmed on one computer. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said he did not believe that the Microsoft witness who had testified to the truthfulness of the tape lied about it, but trial observers said the incident undermined the defense's credibility.

Further discussion of the Gate's Perjury includes http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Bill+Gates+testi mony+Perjury&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=nobody-060200 2327560001%40adsl-209-233-20-69.dsl.snfc21.pacbell .net&rnum=5

In fact, this reprint of the original Ziff Davis Net article with a John Hall interview is in my private archive of resources. The article quotes Mad Dog Hall as properly urging the government to jail Bill Gates for his illegal activities:

http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources/johnhall-ms.h tml

Microsoft has competed unfairly with Borland, FoxPro, Netscape, Sun, Apple among others. They have actively pursued a business plan designed to strip individuals and organization from the fruits of their efforts by tweaking the desktop making others products function worse than Microsoft's products. They have repeatedly hindered the empowerment of people and prevented the empowerment of individuals, especially negatively impacting disenfranchised communities, such as those that NYLXS represents in Brooklyn, and the City of New York. 60 minutes even broadcast a show which showed to fear that developers have of Microsoft and the expectations of these developers to be damaged by their 'Partner'

Of the many corporations in the global economy, Microsoft alone has distinguished itself as a proactive opponent to Free Software.

Things began to heat up with the Halloween Papers.

http://www.opensource.org/halloween/

Microsoft then made a frontal attack on the Free Software Foundations GPL, the most potent tool which protects the community from hostile activities by businesses and individuals who wish to destroy our ability to collaborate.

This article by The Register at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25891.html

looks at how DRM (trusted computing) attacks the GPL.

This certification scheme will rip the guts out of the GPL. That is, the minute I begin tinkering with my software, my ability to interface with the Great PKI in the Sky will be broken. I'll have a Linux box with a GPL, all right; but if I exercise the license in any meaningful way I'll render my system 'unauthorized for Palladium' and lose business. So instead, I imagine I'll be turning to my vendor for support, updates, modifications and patches. And I'll be dependent on them for support services at whatever price they can wheedle out of me because I dare not lose my Palladium authorization. I wonder if the cost of ownership of an open-source system will actually be lower than the cost of a proprietary system under such circumstances.

Prior to this, Microsoft's Craig Mundie made several false statements against the GPL at New York University.

Some of the most successful OSS technology is licensed under the GNU General Public License or GPL. The GPL mandates that any software that incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself become subject to the GPL. When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution.

Microsoft had mailed to every IT director in the US brochures which vilified the GPL, the Free Software movement, and by extension, the Open Source advocates. These mailings contained blatant lies about the contribution of Free Software to the economy and threatened IT directors and developers with unfounded negative consequences if they deploy or use Free Software. The recent GPL FAQ, for example, has the following excerpt:

1. Have your lawyers read the GPL (and the LGPL)? Because the GPL is so frequently misunderstood and because it attempts, under certain circumstances, to impose significant obligations on licensees and their intellectual property rights, no responsible business should use GPL software without ensuring that its lawyers have read the license and explained the business rights and obligations. They should also review and explain the Lesser General Public License, or LGPL, a related license that is sometimes used with open source libraries.

Businesses every day uses Microsoft Software and the software of others which contain intrusive and abusive licensing which is directly in conflict with logical business practices. They would never be accepted by legal teams if the process was open to genuine contract negotiation. The contracts with Microsoft foists on businesses through its abusive monopoly powers constrains segments which allow the disabling of the software and intrudes on the private ownership of data and systems by businesses which purchase Microsoft products today. This is in addition to the clauses which waves them from any responsibility for damages done to business through security violations or the failure of products to perform according to their expectations. And then they sponsored UCITA to make sure that downloaded software from Free Software vendors can not get the same level of protection in a blatant effort to damage efforts of distributors of Free Software to comply with the GPL.

Microsoft has been such an aggressive enemy of Free Software, and the general public that they have used the BSA to do witch hunts against users and business.

They have threatened lawsuits against those who have reversed engineered their document formats They moved their free font access because users downloaded them for Free Software systems. They have proposed a DRM system designed to circumvent the freedom of Free Software development. They have fixed benchmarking studies versus Free Software systems. They have obstructed the legally required refund for operating systems which are forced on consumers with preinstalled systems. They built spyware into their multimedia players, twisted the Java programming language to be incompatible with the implementation on other platforms, refused to release products on Free Software platforms, which includes Microsoft Internet Explorer, introduced in NT4 service pack 3 changes to the SMB protocols to make it break with the Free Software SAMBA product, built back doors into in it's CryptoAPI, deliberately broke the Opera Web Browser when used with the MSN network, have brought down the internet through viruses TWICE in the last year, supported DRM in concert with Record Labels

( http://rss.com.com/2100-1023-983017.html?type=pt&p art=rss&tag=feed&subj=news ),

broke basic TCP/IP protocols with IE5 and IIS

( http://grotto11.com/blog/slash.html?+1039831658 ), advertised recently for advanced Free Software administrators to work for Microsoft in order to create a strategy to force businesses off of Free Software, and more.

Overall, Microsoft alone as a corporation has distinguished itself as an entity which, as a core business policy, is set to enslave Free Software and the general population. Their mission is to dehumanize and embarrass our membership, and to impoverish our community.

This body of evidence would be enough to reject out of hand the entry of Microsoft to the conference. But NYLXS and NY Fair Use has a growing new concern which is pushing it to action. In the face of the growing threat by the Microsoft Corporation to the well-being of Free Software developers, a threat that can be seen by Microsoft hiring GNU/Linux experts in the effort to undermine the business efforts of our community through lies and falsehoods, as well as technically breaking the beneficial integration of mixed environments, and which can be further seen by the 'shared source' media campaign which lies about the foundation of a free society and the stake of businesses in the promotion of both Open Sourced and Free Software legal foundation, there is an increasing knee jerk reaction by organizations supposedly representing the communities interests to give Microsoft a platform and a business advantage at conferences and shows which are designed to promote the community's effort in establishing digital rights and economic development. This started at 'Linux World Expo' in San Fransico and has moved into the New York 'Linux World Expo', where it directly damaged the well being of my membership through the winning of an award which rewarded them for creating a program only could properly write if you have the Windows code base, and it is now making its way to the egov-os conference.

The inclusion of Microsoft at this event directly threatens the health of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce in New York City. There are places for an academic style debate for Free Software versus Sun's community license and Microsoft's Share Source' . A conference whose stated goals is to raise awareness of Free Software and Open Software benefits, to present the best practices for government, and to share experiences about the benefits of using Free Software in government, is not such a venue. This venue is about selling Free Software and the community's efforts to the government. It is hoped to and create a much needed stable economic pipeline for free software vendors with government, based on its technical and political merits. Microsoft's goals are in direct conflict with the stated agenda of the conferences. Allowing them to participate, based on the sole attribute that they are Microsoft and feel that they have something to say, is not enough reason to allow them a platform which will be used to hurt members of the community.

• Microsoft has never contributed any code to the community.

• Microsoft has never advocated any benefits of the use of Free Software or Open Source Software

• Microsoft has never financially contributed to any Free Software development or promoted the education of people about Free Software

• Microsoft has not, in any way, befriended the community.

• Microsoft has positioned itself as an enemy of the community and has threatened it on numerous occasions. In fact, Microsoft has singled out the Free Software and Open Source community for abuse.

Because of the growing misconduct of those who are presenting Free Software and Open Sourced Software to the public, first IDG and now egovos, NYLXS and New Yorkers for Fair Use is now contemplating action, not so much directed against Microsoft, but those wolves in sheep closing who are more directly hurting my membership and the community at large.

In considering actions to take, we are looking at a number of possibilities.

First, it is the opinion of Jay Sulzburger that we can use a hour of time to counter the arguments of Microsoft. My experience is that this will not work. On July 17th, I lead NY Fair Use to Washington to argue against the inclusion of DRM. Despite the fact that our presence was the most important part of the conference, to the point where we engaged productively from the audience both Jack Valenti and Philip Bond, we got no mainstream press. This was despite the presence of the New York Time's Amy Harmon and others. But our action was famous on Capital Hill. When we went back for the Peer to Peer/Berman Bill hearing two months later, several congressional staff members sought me out to ask what we did and to give us compliments. Simply, in regard to Jay's suggestion, nobody will attend such a session outside of the choir, and it will receive no press. On the other hand, Microsoft will get much press.

It has been suggested that egov-os is better to concede a place for Microsoft to allow an open debate. This will not be affective, and the alternative of being tongue whipped by Microsoft in the press is far better since they simply don't qualify for a placement at the conference, and it will allow us to present to the government administrators without interference. It is not NY Fairuse's policy to play 'whack the mole' with DRM issues. Instead, we focus on specific actions which will have broad affect and undermine the ability of our political foes to bring endless action again and again through the governments entire alphabet soup of bureaucracy and congressional committees. If Microsoft objects to being excluded, NY Fair Use (http://fairuse.nylxs.com) would be all to happy to provide a forum for both Microsoft and Richard Stallman, and others, for the benefit of academic debate. It would be a good fund raiser for the Free Software Institute in the coming months. My guess is that Bill Gates has no interest in such a real debate. His company is only interested in marketing and damaging the community. Therefore, participation by any Free Software advocates, or Open Source advocates, in this egov-os conference is highly damaging to the community if it includes Microsoft. And we are therefor calling on a boycott for this event.

It has been said that nobody is stupid enough to believe that Microsoft's 'shared source' promotes Open Source software. Unfortunately, this is very wrong. On the Open Office.org website, every day people ask if they can use and distribute the products. While I wouldn't say people are as dumb as rocks, I will say that they've been so conditioned to think out software as a super-restricted, crash inducing, virus ridden products, that they often have trouble thinking straight about what they should expect from business and software providers.

NY Fair Use is now looking to organize a protest of the event in Washington. A protest will at least give those genuinely from the community an uninhibited outlet. However, NY Fair Use, in general, dislikes protests as a vehicle of change, as we feel they mostly are ignored by a public besieged by 'the protest of the day'.

As a result, we are looking at a more organized campaign against this convention and those who would put events like this one together without considering the moral imperative of not harming the community by giving those who wish to destroy use a platform such as this. Egov-os supposedly advocates Free Software usage in business and government. It should do so without constraint and without apologies.

We are calling for an investigation of the egov-os organizers for misconduct. I've spoken with Tony Stanco many times and it's not possible that he doesn't grasp the basics of the issues outlined here, or how including Microsoft will negatively affect our community. Therefor, the invitation of Microsoft to this conference must be either a direct payoff, or self promotion. Since they are moral equivalents, they are both both equally condemnable.

We insist that Microsoft should not be given any platform at this event, because it is their purpose to undermine the community and its efforts. Since this is not being promoted as an academic debate, but instead is a marketing tool for Open Source and Free Software, we reject any arguments which are based on the concept that we should open the floor to them in order to dispel Microsoft corporate lies. This venue does not have the most basic format to handle this problem.

If, for contractual reasons, it is impossible to remove them from the conference, we ask the organizers to give NYLXS's subcommittee, New Yorkers for Fair Use, both the keynote and the Microsoft slot in the speaking arraignments. David Sugar will represent NYLXS, and I will represent NY Fair Use.

Finally, the website for the event needs to have on the front page a clear statement that it has determined that Microsoft's 'shared' code' program to be directly in opposition to both Free Software and the Open Source ideals, in that it does not promote the empowerment of the community through the freedom of innovation and digital systems ownership by individuals, the government or businesses.

I do not expect that these suggestions will be taken by Bruce Perens, or the other organizers of the egov-os events. So I expect that we will have to work to oppose the event.

Ruben Safir

President New Yorkers for Fair Use

http://fairuse.nylxs.com

Looking further at the troubles with the e-gov-os conference and after reviewing the opinions of Bruce Perens, Richard Stallman, David Sugar, Jay Sulzburger, David Wheeler, Stanley Klein, Chalu Kim, Claus Srensen, Jason Faulkner, Russell McOrmond, Louis Suarez-Potts, David A. Hammond and others, comments which have expanded over 10 mailing lists, and which have generated a few hundred private emails to me in my private email box, I'm forced to draw several conclusions.

First, as President of NYLXS and President of New Yorkers for Fair Use, my primary concern is two fold:

First, in my role as President of NYLXS, my primary goal is to cater to the needs of the membership, and the extended constituency of the organization, the Free Software development community and users in the New York City area. In truth, all organizations have a primary responsibility to their constituencies. It is time for others to look at their constituency and see how they are serving them. An organization which doesn't serve a constituency is an organization in name only.

Secondly, as an individual citizen and active member of the Free Software movement, I'm concerned with broad policy decisions of others in regards to individual rights with in our digitalized communications network. I'm focused on practical activities which protect the freedom of individuals and empower individuals and communities in education, government and business.

These are the only two prisms in which I can view the planned events of EgovOS conference.

I tend to be very thorough and deliberate in my conclusions. When I work through the process of developing activities and actions, or when I write in regard to issues of importance in a proper fashion for publication, or when I give a formal opinion piece representing any of our organizations journals, radio shows, public speeches, or other formalized media outlets, I bring to bear on that presentation, not only thorough research of the issue and much consultation, but also my 30 years of political and practical experience in affecting positive political and social outcomes.

I bring this same effort to this current letter, which I am opening up to the public and which will be published on http://fairuse.nylxs.com and which will be included in the coming NYLXS Journal.

First, let's look at the stated goals of the sponsored event. As listed on htttp://www.egovos.org/, the goals of this conference is:

Open Source for National and Local eGovernment Programs in the U.S. and EU

Goals:

1. the presentation of best practices

2. raising awareness

3. sharing of experiences among policy makers, donors, users/consumers, universities, and industry specialists in Open Source, e-Government and related fields.

NYLXS has, for a couple of years, worked to sell Free Software on both the local, New York City Level and in the Federal Government. We'll had a variety of experiences in this regard, many of them very negative. As such, this conference seems to be important to the economic and political health of the NYLXS membership, including The Free Software Chamber of Commerce, our Public Educational initiative in New York City Public Schools, and New Yorkers for Fair Use. Our direct prosperity as a community is tied to the stated goals of the conference, and in fact, members of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce had prepared to make presentations at the conference. It was the concerns of members of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce which brought the problems which have enveloped the conference to my attention.

The main problem is the participation of Microsoft as a speaker and presenter at the conference. In a previous email, I have already listed the problems that Microsoft presents. But for the sake of making this a complete document, I will reiterate them and expand upon the Microsoft issue.

First of all, Microsoft is a reckless company which operates above the law. It has recently been convicted twice for antitrust activities, and has been guilty of numerous other illegal competitive practices which have gone without prosecution. http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_index.htm is a rundown of the current conviction of Microsoft for antitrust actions which is still going through the courts. Microsoft was not only determined have acted illegally in regard to browser technology, but they have also had their CEO, Bill Gates, lie under oath. The testimony can be searched here:

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/video/gates/

http://www.broadcast.com/news/billgates/

investigation of his perjury is here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24990.html

http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=A rticle&cid=FT3MLEDHF0D&live=true&useoverridetempla te=ZZZUGORQ00C&tagid=ZZZNSJCX70C&subheading=global

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/msdo j991107.html

They even doctored their prepared testimony which got much press:

http://www.idg.net/crd_microsoft_67162.html and to quote:

Chase's testimony last week struck a note similar to the previous week's fiasco over a Microsoft videotaped demonstration. Government attorney David Boies had scored by pointing out inconsistent details in a videotape, submitted by Microsoft as evidence, that showed that Microsoft had used multiple PCs to film a demo the company first implied was a seamless segment filmed on one computer. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said he did not believe that the Microsoft witness who had testified to the truthfulness of the tape lied about it, but trial observers said the incident undermined the defense's credibility.

Further discussion of the Gate's Perjury includes http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Bill+Gates+testi mony+Perjury&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=nobody-060200 2327560001%40adsl-209-233-20-69.dsl.snfc21.pacbell .net&rnum=5

In fact, this reprint of the original Ziff Davis Net article with a John Hall interview is in my private archive of resources. The article quotes Mad Dog Hall as properly urging the government to jail Bill Gates for his illegal activities:

http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources/johnhall-ms.h tml

Microsoft has competed unfairly with Borland, FoxPro, Netscape, Sun, Apple among others. They have actively pursued a business plan designed to strip individuals and organization from the fruits of their efforts by tweaking the desktop making others products function worse than Microsoft's products. They have repeatedly hindered the empowerment of people and prevented the empowerment of individuals, especially negatively impacting disenfranchised communities, such as those that NYLXS represents in Brooklyn, and the City of New York. 60 minutes even broadcast a show which showed to fear that developers have of Microsoft and the expectations of these developers to be damaged by their 'Partner'

Of the many corporations in the global economy, Microsoft alone has distinguished itself as a proactive opponent to Free Software.

Things began to heat up with the Halloween Papers.

http://www.opensource.org/halloween/

Microsoft then made a frontal attack on the Free Software Foundations GPL, the most potent tool which protects the community from hostile activities by businesses and individuals who wish to destroy our ability to collaborate.

This article by The Register at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25891.html

looks at how DRM (trusted computing) attacks the GPL.

This certification scheme will rip the guts out of the GPL. That is, the minute I begin tinkering with my software, my ability to interface with the Great PKI in the Sky will be broken. I'll have a Linux box with a GPL, all right; but if I exercise the license in any meaningful way I'll render my system 'unauthorized for Palladium' and lose business. So instead, I imagine I'll be turning to my vendor for support, updates, modifications and patches. And I'll be dependent on them for support services at whatever price they can wheedle out of me because I dare not lose my Palladium authorization. I wonder if the cost of ownership of an open-source system will actually be lower than the cost of a proprietary system under such circumstances.

Prior to this, Microsoft's Craig Mundie made several false statements against the GPL at New York University.

Some of the most successful OSS technology is licensed under the GNU General Public License or GPL. The GPL mandates that any software that incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself become subject to the GPL. When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution.

Microsoft had mailed to every IT director in the US brochures which vilified the GPL, the Free Software movement, and by extension, the Open Source advocates. These mailings contained blatant lies about the contribution of Free Software to the economy and threatened IT directors and developers with unfounded negative consequences if they deploy or use Free Software. The recent GPL FAQ, for example, has the following excerpt:

1. Have your lawyers read the GPL (and the LGPL)? Because the GPL is so frequently misunderstood and because it attempts, under certain circumstances, to impose significant obligations on licensees and their intellectual property rights, no responsible business should use GPL software without ensuring that its lawyers have read the license and explained the business rights and obligations. They should also review and explain the Lesser General Public License, or LGPL, a related license that is sometimes used with open source libraries.

Businesses every day uses Microsoft Software and the software of others which contain intrusive and abusive licensing which is directly in conflict with logical business practices. They would never be accepted by legal teams if the process was open to genuine contract negotiation. The contracts with Microsoft foists on businesses through its abusive monopoly powers constrains segments which allow the disabling of the software and intrudes on the private ownership of data and systems by businesses which purchase Microsoft products today. This is in addition to the clauses which waves them from any responsibility for damages done to business through security violations or the failure of products to perform according to their expectations. And then they sponsored UCITA to make sure that downloaded software from Free Software vendors can not get the same level of protection in a blatant effort to damage efforts of distributors of Free Software to comply with the GPL.

Microsoft has been such an aggressive enemy of Free Software, and the general public that they have used the BSA to do witch hunts against users and business.

They have threatened lawsuits against those who have reversed engineered their document formats They moved their free font access because users downloaded them for Free Software systems. They have proposed a DRM system designed to circumvent the freedom of Free Software development. They have fixed benchmarking studies versus Free Software systems. They have obstructed the legally required refund for operating systems which are forced on consumers with preinstalled systems. They built spyware into their multimedia players, twisted the Java programming language to be incompatible with the implementation on other platforms, refused to release products on Free Software platforms, which includes Microsoft Internet Explorer, introduced in NT4 service pack 3 changes to the SMB protocols to make it break with the Free Software SAMBA product, built back doors into in it's CryptoAPI, deliberately broke the Opera Web Browser when used with the MSN network, have brought down the internet through viruses TWICE in the last year, supported DRM in concert with Record Labels

( http://rss.com.com/2100-1023-983017.html?type=pt&p art=rss&tag=feed&subj=news ),

broke basic TCP/IP protocols with IE5 and IIS

( http://grotto11.com/blog/slash.html?+1039831658 ), advertised recently for advanced Free Software administrators to work for Microsoft in order to create a strategy to force businesses off of Free Software, and more.

Overall, Microsoft alone as a corporation has distinguished itself as an entity which, as a core business policy, is set to enslave Free Software and the general population. Their mission is to dehumanize and embarrass our membership, and to impoverish our community.

This body of evidence would be enough to reject out of hand the entry of Microsoft to the conference. But NYLXS and NY Fair Use has a growing new concern which is pushing it to action. In the face of the growing threat by the Microsoft Corporation to the well-being of Free Software developers, a threat that can be seen by Microsoft hiring GNU/Linux experts in the effort to undermine the business efforts of our community through lies and falsehoods, as well as technically breaking the beneficial integration of mixed environments, and which can be further seen by the 'shared source' media campaign which lies about the foundation of a free society and the stake of businesses in the promotion of both Open Sourced and Free Software legal foundation, there is an increasing knee jerk reaction by organizations supposedly representing the communities interests to give Microsoft a platform and a business advantage at conferences and shows which are designed to promote the community's effort in establishing digital rights and economic development. This started at 'Linux World Expo' in San Fransico and has moved into the New York 'Linux World Expo', where it directly damaged the well being of my membership through the winning of an award which rewarded them for creating a program only could properly write if you have the Windows code base, and it is now making its way to the egov-os conference.

The inclusion of Microsoft at this event directly threatens the health of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce in New York City. There are places for an academic style debate for Free Software versus Sun's community license and Microsoft's Share Source' . A conference whose stated goals is to raise awareness of Free Software and Open Software benefits, to present the best practices for government, and to share experiences about the benefits of using Free Software in government, is not such a venue. This venue is about selling Free Software and the community's efforts to the government. It is hoped to and create a much needed stable economic pipeline for free software vendors with government, based on its technical and political merits. Microsoft's goals are in direct conflict with the stated agenda of the conferences. Allowing them to participate, based on the sole attribute that they are Microsoft and feel that they have something to say, is not enough reason to allow them a platform which will be used to hurt members of the community.

• Microsoft has never contributed any code to the community.

• Microsoft has never advocated any benefits of the use of Free Software or Open Source Software

• Microsoft has never financially contributed to any Free Software development or promoted the education of people about Free Software

• Microsoft has not, in any way, befriended the community.

• Microsoft has positioned itself as an enemy of the community and has threatened it on numerous occasions. In fact, Microsoft has singled out the Free Software and Open Source community for abuse.

Because of the growing misconduct of those who are presenting Free Software and Open Sourced Software to the public, first IDG and now egovos, NYLXS and New Yorkers for Fair Use is now contemplating action, not so much directed against Microsoft, but those wolves in sheep closing who are more directly hurting my membership and the community at large.

In considering actions to take, we are looking at a number of possibilities.

First, it is the opinion of Jay Sulzburger that we can use a hour of time to counter the arguments of Microsoft. My experience is that this will not work. On July 17th, I lead NY Fair Use to Washington to argue against the inclusion of DRM. Despite the fact that our presence was the most important part of the conference, to the point where we engaged productively from the audience both Jack Valenti and Philip Bond, we got no mainstream press. This was despite the presence of the New York Time's Amy Harmon and others. But our action was famous on Capital Hill. When we went back for the Peer to Peer/Berman Bill hearing two months later, several congressional staff members sought me out to ask what we did and to give us compliments. Simply, in regard to Jay's suggestion, nobody will attend such a session outside of the choir, and it will receive no press. On the other hand, Microsoft will get much press.

It has been suggested that egov-os is better to concede a place for Microsoft to allow an open debate. This will not be affective, and the alternative of being tongue whipped by Microsoft in the press is far better since they simply don't qualify for a placement at the conference, and it will allow us to present to the government administrators without interference. It is not NY Fairuse's policy to play 'whack the mole' with DRM issues. Instead, we focus on specific actions which will have broad affect and undermine the ability of our political foes to bring endless action again and again through the governments entire alphabet soup of bureaucracy and congressional committees. If Microsoft objects to being excluded, NY Fair Use (http://fairuse.nylxs.com) would be all to happy to provide a forum for both Microsoft and Richard Stallman, and others, for the benefit of academic debate. It would be a good fund raiser for the Free Software Institute in the coming months. My guess is that Bill Gates has no interest in such a real debate. His company is only interested in marketing and damaging the community. Therefore, participation by any Free Software advocates, or Open Source advocates, in this egov-os conference is highly damaging to the community if it includes Microsoft. And we are therefor calling on a boycott for this event.

It has been said that nobody is stupid enough to believe that Microsoft's 'shared source' promotes Open Source software. Unfortunately, this is very wrong. On the Open Office.org website, every day people ask if they can use and distribute the products. While I wouldn't say people are as dumb as rocks, I will say that they've been so conditioned to think out software as a super-restricted, crash inducing, virus ridden products, that they often have trouble thinking straight about what they should expect from business and software providers.

NY Fair Use is now looking to organize a protest of the event in Washington. A protest will at least give those genuinely from the community an uninhibited outlet. However, NY Fair Use, in general, dislikes protests as a vehicle of change, as we feel they mostly are ignored by a public besieged by 'the protest of the day'.

As a result, we are looking at a more organized campaign against this convention and those who would put events like this one together without considering the moral imperative of not harming the community by giving those who wish to destroy use a platform such as this. Egov-os supposedly advocates Free Software usage in business and government. It should do so without constraint and without apologies.

We are calling for an investigation of the egov-os organizers for misconduct. I've spoken with Tony Stanco many times and it's not possible that he doesn't grasp the basics of the issues outlined here, or how including Microsoft will negatively affect our community. Therefor, the invitation of Microsoft to this conference must be either a direct payoff, or self promotion. Since they are moral equivalents, they are both both equally condemnable.

We insist that Microsoft should not be given any platform at this event, because it is their purpose to undermine the community and its efforts. Since this is not being promoted as an academic debate, but instead is a marketing tool for Open Source and Free Software, we reject any arguments which are based on the concept that we should open the floor to them in order to dispel Microsoft corporate lies. This venue does not have the most basic format to handle this problem.

If, for contractual reasons, it is impossible to remove them from the conference, we ask the organizers to give NYLXS's subcommittee, New Yorkers for Fair Use, both the keynote and the Microsoft slot in the speaking arraignments. David Sugar will represent NYLXS, and I will represent NY Fair Use.

Finally, the website for the event needs to have on the front page a clear statement that it has determined that Microsoft's 'shared' code' program to be directly in opposition to both Free Software and the Open Source ideals, in that it does not promote the empowerment of the community through the freedom of innovation and digital systems ownership by individuals, the government or businesses.

I do not expect that these suggestions will be taken by Bruce Perens, or the other organizers of the egov-os events. So I expect that we will have to work to oppose the event.

Ruben Safir

President New Yorkers for Fair Use

http://fairuse.nylxs.com

Shameless self promotion here but - I had a letter I wrote to the Financial Times published today on this same topic.

Let this be a call to arms for all slashdotters - if you argue the facts back to the newspapers they might just print the other side of the story.

Rosen, RIAA, et al has been very busy lately drumming up press about how piracy has killed the industry and how the poor sound mixers and unknown artists will suffer. I disagree. The record industry exists to solve two expensive problems: distribution and promotion.

Then along came the internet, MP3s, CD-burners, and DVD players. Technology has solved the distribution problem. Which leaves the BMGs, Sonys, RCAs, of the world to do just promotion. Promotion is a far less valuable (and profitable) commodity.

The wired article is dead-on. Piracy may indeed have an inpact. The industry must change or die.

Shameless self promotion here but - I had a letter I wrote to the Financial Times published today on this same topic.

Let this be a call to arms for all slashdotters - if you argue the facts back to the newspapers they might just print the other side of the story.

Rosen, RIAA, et al has been very busy lately drumming up press about how piracy has killed the industry and how the poor sound mixers and unknown artists will suffer. I disagree. The record industry exists to solve two expensive problems: distribution and promotion.

Then along came the internet, MP3s, CD-burners, and DVD players. Technology has solved the distribution problem. Which leaves the BMGs, Sonys, RCAs, of the world to do just promotion. Promotion is a far less valuable (and profitable) commodity.

The wired article is dead-on. Piracy may indeed have an inpact. The industry must change or die.

Here's the key quote for those who don't want to register:

"Matsushita and Sony have agreed to jointly develop the Linux operating system for digital consumer electronic products, in a highly unusual and cooperative deal between two of the fiercest rivals in the industry... Sony and Matsushita will continue to use the existing operating systems for specific products - such as Windows for Vaio - but expect the newly developed version of Linux to be increasingly used in home electronic devices, such as portable and home AV products."

The reason this trend will go places is quite simple: The much-bandied-about "Microsoft Tax" is real, and the major CE manufacturers don't want to pay it. This combined with the strong likelihood (--> certainty) that MS will attempt to commoditized them ensures that they will fight back. These guys are not only smart, they are bigger than Microsoft (Sony: $60bn revenues) and they are determined to not get cut out of the market, or turned into Compaq/HP style failures. Who benefits? The Linux community is going to get a huge boost, because the single best weapon these firms have against MS is Linux, and they are going to use it with a vengeance.

all this means is that lessig is right in eldred v. ashcroft.

copyrights should foster innovation. that is the only reason they should exist. they should exist to line corporate pockets. so they should expire with the death of the author. if corporations via sonny bono extend them unnaturally beyond the lifetime of the author, then copyrights instead suppress innovation. 50 years? 95 years? whatever. copyrights should rightly expire when the author is rip.

this expired here but not there bs is just another example of why extending copyrights unnaturally by greedy corporations is a bad idea.

Many people here prefer to roll their own operating system.

Critics tend to be of two classes. A musician's critique of another performer is often better informed in certain critical aspects than that of a fan, or your ordinary music user. They can spot certain cheats in technique that a non musician would not care about.

In this regard, criticism by people knowledgable in the art should not be so light dismissed.

and then, there is this detail:

As Seen in this Financial Times report Microsoft has revealed its profit margins for the first time. The client division, which markets Windows, generated operating profits last quarter of 2.48 billion dollars on revenues of 2.89 billion dollars, implying margins of 85 per cent. Most other remaining Microsoft businesses made losses, raising questions about the benefits of the group's costly efforts at diversification.

The means that if the full version of Windows XP sells at retail for about $300.00, Microsoft could still sell it for $45 and still make a profit. The difference between what it could sell it for and what it does sell it for is what economists call "monopoly rents". You can see the SEC filing here, in incredibly tiny print. Microsoft was found guilty of illegally maintaining its monopoly in personal computer operating systems in 2000. Penalties in the case have been criticised as a hand slap. We now know where the Microsoft 40 billion dollar cash reserves came from.

Not that we should ever steal anything from Microsoft. It is not wise to steal from the mafia.

People hate Microsoft

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. etc., etc. You're wrong.

Red Hat is one of the fastest growing companies in America

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Sorry to make you look so incredibly wrong, but you posted first. I just couldn't let that fly. By the way, what planet do you live on, exactly?

It's ironic, giving the information available today, you would think you would have done just a little research.

You need to stop just speculating like every other idiot, go beyond hypothesis, and start rigorously testing your assertions.

If you're not just trolling and actually give a shit about the issues you claim you are. I suggest you start reading what the upper echelons read.

The Economist
The Financial Times
The Wall Street Journal

Try searching for "shayler" on the BBC news site...
Looks like public interest in this story officially expired back in March.

Even stranger, the Financial Times [subscription required] reports "No matches" for the same search.

At least The Guardian are on the case, although even they have had some articles censored.
Of course, they can't actually report that this censorship occurred.

Scary.

French leader offers formula to tackle Iraq [NYT/10Sep]
President Chirac described the Bush administration doctrine of pre-emptive military action in its fight against terrorism as "extraordinarily dangerous." He said, "As soon as one nation claims the right to take preventive action, other countries will naturally do the same." He asked, "What would you say in the entirely hypothetical event that China wanted to take pre-emptive action against Taiwan, saying that Taiwan was a threat to it? How would the Americans, the Europeans and others react? Or what if India decided to take preventive action against Pakistan, or vice versa?"

Taiwan denounces Chinese 'terrorism'[BBC/10Sep] Mr Chen also voiced concern over China's "asymmetric" military strategy under which it could target Taiwan with cruise missiles, biochemical weaponry, internet hackers and electric magnetic pulse (EMP) bombs which could paralyse Taiwan's communication and banking networks.

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/09/09/0044238.sh tml?tid=172