Slashdot Mirror

I hope you are kidding but, the 1965 VRA prevents literacy exams, and the USSC has upheld it as Constitutional

What happened to laissez faire ideals, free market and all that.
Microsoft is argueably the most successful company evar, if the DOJ takes action to break up Microsoft or fine them I could see this as the ideals of capitalism breaking down.

People would nolonger aspire to become as rich and successful as possible? Is being greedy a crime?
If you were Bill Gates would you open source Windows or would you buy a few more boats!

I didn't say that it was a *purely* visual media. But you are ignoring reality if you are suggesting that it isn't a predominantly visual media. Visual is the only one of my 5 senses I use when online.

It's an informational (read: text-driven) media.

For you, informational=text-driven. That is not necessarily the case. There are many ways to convey information and they aren't all text-based. Look around at the majority of websites and you'll see they depend heavily on graphics. Some are informational, some aren't... but the web is clearly not a text-only medium.

Graphics are and ought to be just added eye-candy for those of us who have working eyes.

Who says? You? Yes, this site works great as text because it's a forum. Many sites work less great as text and some just might not work at all.

Even if they DO work with text-only, perhaps the experience the designer wants to convey can only be achieved with graphics and I feel it is his or her right to develop their site that way.

It's not like Yahoo intentionally left these people out; it was just an honest oversight. If they don't bother to do anything to rectify the situation, then, yes, a lawsuit may be in order

The idea of providing wheelchair access, etc. is to make a reasonable effort so these people can function in society. And there are even exceptions in the cases for physical access.

• "While it is not possible for many businesses, especially small businesses, to make their facilities fully accessible, there is much that can be done without much difficulty or expense to improve accessibility. Therefore, the ADA requires that accessibility be improved
• without taking on excessive expenses that could harm the business." (from ADA Website).

I think the issue here is whether or not there is a better way to validate that a human is filling out a form rather than a computer. So far, the password-encoded graphic seems to be the best method. Perhaps others will be found in the future. I don't have the time or budget to look for it though. Perhaps the blind (or their lawyers) should make an effort to publicize the problem and look for funds for R&D to FIND an alternative rather than contemplating lawsuits. That'd be money much better spent.

I don't think anyone intentionally wants to discriminate against the blind. But there's only so much effort and money you can expect a website to make for a demographic that represents so few of their visitors. Heck, even in the United States simply requiring Spanish translation would be a more effective method of reducing descrimination online.

On top of problems for the handicapped, I am troubled by the prospect of intentionally hobbling electronic access to information. The information is obfuscated not just to spammers (and the blind), but to everybody else. Want to make a software Web Agent? Sorry, you can't. Archive the information? Don't worry, it's only 10x larger in obfuscated form.... oh, and you'll never be able to search it! Tying information down to its "intended use" has lots of unforseen effects, mostly bad I would argue.

We're intentionally degrading information exchange and why? To protect spam?

Here is some interesting statistics from 1992.
Look at the box on page one.

Now compare those figures with the sentence time this guy got.
I bet those women / men who were raped / kidnapped / got $180 Million too...

And this guy pleaded guilty.

The RIAA isn't far behind.

The RIAA isn't far behind.

your D/L has it tied in for police.

I'm almost positive my Driver's License doesn't have my SSN tied to it. In fact I would presume that to be illegal. The SSN is supposed to be used only for social security. Granted, private industry has abused this and tied to all sorts of things for conveinence, but when the -STATE- government starts demanding it for licensing purposes I'll get worried.

And your presumption would be incorrect. The laws surrounding your SSN prohibit certain uses, but attaching it to your driver's license is an exemption to those provisions. Most states do it, and can require you to provide it in order to get a license.

Hate Microsoft; hate spam.
Hate Microsoft; hate spam.
Evil greedy corporation; slimy pollution of the Internet.
Illegally abusing their monopoly; illegally hijacking servers.
Overpriced software; lowest mortgage rates ever.
Bug-ridden products; barnyard porn.
Embrace and extend; extend your manhood.
No concept of security; special offers on SystemWorks 2003.
Never innovating; always innovating.

I'm siding with Microsoft.

*sob*

1. HealthSouth Corp $38,255

As in this Healthsouth?

I guess piracy, although applicable to a 13 year old kid who downloads a Metallica song, is not applicable to the likes of Ken Lay and Richard Scrushy. I would suggest that if the Senator is truly concerned about fighting crime, he start by returning the money bilked from Healthsouth investors.

Oh, and use clickable links, its not that hard.

• http://www.idg.net/english/crd_gates_888634.html
• http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/2003summary/html/atr.htm

By strange coincidence, Ralph Nader's total number of votes in the US in 2000 was 2,864,810. This means that for every Naderite, there's a person in jail.

the thing is , just how do they conclude what the value of what any one item is. I personally don't even have much against the copyright laws the NET Act tries to enforce.... it's the way it is worded.

If you offer up one song, are you then responsible for the value of the copy of that song anyone who downloaded it from you then shares as well? It's impossible to tell really.

How the heck do they come up with things like: (NET Act)

if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000;

if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution of 10 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of $2,500 or more;

obviously listing them in such a way implies that there are single CD's approaching the $1000 value limit or 10 approaching $2500, otherwise the numbers would not be so correlated... just how do they conclude these values, obviously it's not based on the pricetag you would pay for a single CD at Tower Records. Why not layout exactly how the value of a "phonorecord" is determined since it seems that the simple method of checking manufacturers suggested retail price is not the method.

The law would even be fairly acceptable if it weren't so vague, I always have condoned the theory that ignorance of it is no excuse for breaking the law, but frankly you could read this law over and over and still not know exactly what point you would have broken it at.

Uh, actually, he's right.

Why don't you research what you say next time?

It is a fact, as found by a US court, that Microsoft is not only a monopoly, but an abusive one, deserving of severe punishment. The Bush administration got a large sum of cash from Microsoft, and made it go away conveniently.

Where's _your_ research?

First of all, Richard Salgado has got to tell people to be very careful. He's a prosecutor for the government. He's got to say things that err on the side of safety, and of never condoning possible violations of the law. (He's a nice guy, and a good speaker. He's just very obviously in one corner, and has the party line to hew to).

Secondly, read 18 U.S.C. Section 2511. That lays out the _exceptions_ to the Wiretap Act, which includes the Provider exception, which boils down to: if you own the machine, and have appropriate banners, and the wiretap is done "while engaged in any activity which is a necessary incident to the rendition of [the rightful adminstrator's] service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service...". The reason the gov't is goosey about honeypots is, if it is a property laid out to be broken into, then is the wiretapping justfied? If you're doing it as part of the defense of your network, consensus tends to be yes. If you're doing it for shits and giggles, there tends to be less consensus. The gov't needs to be able to prosecute anyone, so without court cases telling them otherwise they're leaning to the stricter interpretation.

Thirdly, if you're interested, read the posted practical assignments for the SANS GCFA (Forensics) course/certification. The original assignment (the only one posted currently) has three parts, the third of which is Describe in detail your authority as a system administrator with regards to this statute. Keep in mind that none of those people are lawyers, but most of them sat through a course including Richard Salgado talking on this issue, and all of them worked their butt off to write the paper and pass the course. More work than goes into, say, a /. post 8).

I've often had to publicly defend Microsoft against what I felt were acts of scapegoating from whining competitors (including Novell, Borland, Lotus, and Wordperfect), complaints which remind me of the way some Americans like to blame Japan for what are ultimately our own domestic problems.

Funny how the US Government later decided that M$ did indeed engage is such practices. Andy and DDJ should be ashamed of that article.

Let's see how the US government saw things. The jucky bits about DRDOS have been dug up by others. Have a look at M$ email for yourself. It was orchestrated from the start to crush an admitedly superior technology, included abouse of Microsoft's own custormers and malicious PR. Anyone who says differently has been proven a fool.

The destruction of court records is evil because it burries evidence of wrongdoing by a convicted monopolist that has yet to be punished and is proceeding as if nothing at all had happened. These letters may be published elsewhere, but they need to be preserved in context if an objective history is to be written. There's no telling what goodies the Caldera folks dug up before they became M$'s next shill. Evidence of Microsoft's concerted effort to eliminate free software is going to be lost.

It's illegal for Apple to try to impose that restriction. It's an illegal tying arrangement. See 15 USC 1.

I don't think you need to limit government prosecution of CRIMINAL cases.

As devil's advocate [sic], I'd have to point out that the government has a long history of passing legislation after the fact that puts severe penalties on a minor crime that sit on the books until some unsuspecting victim fumbles into the trap. Examples are the NET Act and 1933's H.R. 4220 "For the Protection of Government Records" that penalized people who disseminated information that was once in coded or encrypted form (ref. "The Codebreakers", David Kahn).

See The No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/17-18red. htm

The term "financial gain" includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works.

"Lies, damned lies and statistics" applies, of course (I haven't bothered to check or enumerate the differences in metrics between the two sets of statistics), but draw your own conclusions.

--

In any case, 5 weeks with no word, no announcement of charges definitely runs contrary to the spirit of the Constitution with respect to the right to a speedy trial.

The state's revenue went up from the previous budget. The only reason we have a 'deficit' is because the state was planning to increase spending even more.

The governor is simply using the 'deficit' as an excuse to re-prioritize the budget. This is the same guy who, as leader of the Minnesota House of Representatives, wrote a public comment supporting the MS-DOJ antitrust settlement.

Small correction:

Drug dealers suing DEA?

"The guy who murdered him got like 23 years in prison. Thats friggin pathetic. "

Is it? Here is a quote from the Dept of Justice Dept of Justice

# Of the 68,533 defendants convicted and sentenced during 2001, 74% were sentenced to a term of probation (either alone or in conjunction with probation), 17% were sentenced to probation (either alone or with incarceration), and 4% were sentenced to pay a fine alone.

# The average prison sentence imposed during 2001 was 57 months. Defendants convicted of violent felonies (91 months), weapons felonies (87 months), and drug felonies (74 months) received the longest prison terms, on average.

In case you are mathametically challenged 91 months is about seven and a half years. BTW that's just the sentencing not the actual time served which is probably a lot less.

"Europeans just aren't serious about crime. They're afraid of the death penalty and of harsh sentences."

Oh yes, that probably explains why europe has much higher crime rates then the US right?

"I guess human lives don't matter when its murder. Heck not even a high profile politician's life matters."

No humans don't matter if they are arabs.

Which United States are you talking about? The supplier can set conditions exactly like that, it is a simple matter of contract. For example, why do you suppose Nintendo Game Cubes and Sony PS/2s were exactly the same price at all those different stores when first released? It certainly isn't a coincidence or just the 'suggestion' of the manufacturer.

Price fixing involves competitors agreeing to prop up prices, not the supplier. There is a fairly non-leaglized decription available from the US DOJ. Also, it is far more likely that fines and symbolic restitution will apply rather than prison time.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/cv2.htm

overall, violent crime in the US has been on the decline since 1993.

interesting coincidence: the decline started the year DOOM was released, one of the first widespread, graphically violent games.

and a proven statistic: the higher the unemployment, the higher the crime rate. does this mean we can make bad economic policy illegal too?

What's the statute of limitations for copyright violations?

Three years. Or is it 5? I think it's three.

Uhm, they already have...

He didn't give an accurate quote. You see, they don't consider alcohol a drug, so when they say "In a roadside study, one in three reckless drivers who were tested for drugs, tested positive for marijuana," they really mean "of the reckless drivers who were caught, 33% of those not drunk were stoned," which I figure works out to about 5% of the reckless drivers who were caught. I see lots of reckless drivers, and I never see any of them pulled over. Most of them are reckless because they're damn fools in a hurry, not because they're drunk or stoned.

So, apparantly a larger percentage of the population uses marijuana than is impared by marijuana while driving, which makes sense, because most of the smokers I know don't drive stoned. Unlike the drunks, they're smarter than that.

About ten years ago, I was doing some statistical investigations of the incidence of homicides in urban centers. I came across some discrepancies between the reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics ("BJS"), the database referred to in the parent of this post, and the National Center for Health Statistics ("NCHS"). Homicides are reported both by administrative arms of the courts and law enforcement, and by county and state pathologists, although using different reporting channels. In theory, they should agree. There are really no different standards used in one versus another, since pathologists determine cause of death.

I was startled to see significant discrepancies. Indeed, when I looked into the matter further, I found there had been entire research papers written on the subject. (Don't have time to find those now, but those interested can e-mail me.) Further study indicated I needed to know something about how BJS obtained their numbers, so I called BJS.

I spoke to a representative there for a long time. Now, this charcterization is, as I said, ten years old, and perhaps it has improved. But the rep said contribution of numbers and classification of crime incidents were voluntary programs from state and county authorities. In contrast, y'see, reporting from pathologists is mandatory and they are audited for accuracy. No such auditing is done for BJS or states or counties. When I asked why, the rep said that they needed to cooperate with local law authorities on a wide range of programs involving enforcement and otherwise, and they did not want to alienate them.

So, at least as of ten years ago, if a local sherriff or state wanted to make their official track record look better, they could "administratively misclassify" a set of crimes and there is no mechanism for finding them out. It is only detectable in the case of homicide because both BJS and NCHS have the same events recorded in their databases.

*sigh* for sure.(:-(}

Pretty easy to request your own file. Check out the DOJ's FOIA Guide. It will tell you where to send the request and what forms to fill out (Form DOJ-361 for instance, the Certification of Identify).

There are laws against such activities. But as long as a bunch of corrupt, self-serving, unconstitutional cowards are in charge, no real action against white-collar crimes will ever be taken.

Or, to put it differently: As long as white-collar criminals are in charge, white-collar crimes will be tolerated.

What I don't understand is why ordinary people tolerate and defend Bush's actions. After all, it is you and I who pay the bill at the end of the day.

This demagogue ought to actually read the copyright Act before he starts making false accusations of criminal conduct against his fellow citizens. (He also better make sure his kids are clean.)

1) Even where infringement is present, it isn't necessarily criminal:

It isn't criminal unless willful, and it isn't willful merely because it was copied. Evidence of infringement doesn't suffice under the Copyright Act.

2) Even where willful infringement is present, it isn't necessarily criminal:

If not for commercial purposes or by taking a retail value exceeding $1,000 in a six-month period.

3) Even where willful infringement is criminal, it isn't necessarily a felony:

If not for commercial purposes, it is merely a midemeanor, in the sense that the maximum criminal sentence is limited to not more than a year. (Not sure if that is the relevant standard -- I'm not a criminal lawyer).

The Freedom of Information Act is the tool of choice for finding out exactly what about you is in those databases. In fact, I would not be surprised if a lot of people started flooding them with requests - and forcing them to answer, with lawsuits if they do not comply with the Act.

As an aside, an Expedia ad popped up when I went to that article. I love it when collusion with advertisers is that obvious.

Well, if there're thousands of people to mail them out, some of them are likely to be in the DC area, don't you think?

But let's take your random-mailing notion seriously for a moment. To capture the majority of employees at FBI, CIA, NSA -- the groups that use most polygraph clearances -- you've got to cover all of both the DC and Baltimore metro areas, (remember that lots of people commute from B'more, especially to NSA which is actually closer to B'more than downtown DC.) Several web sources seem to suggest a total population in the neighborhood of 8 million, and DoJ says the total employment of FBI is about 128,000 . Total for all three isn't going to be more than double that. (Trust me on this, I actually have worked with all three agencies.) We can guess that the average number of people per individual address is between 2 and 3 -- and this estimate isn't very sensitive to the assumption because because big households are rare. So let's say conservatively that there are 3 million households in that area. This means it's about seven percent of the total households, or that in order to hit 7 Agency households you've got to mail 100 copies. That's 185000 copies to get 50 percent coverage.

I don't think this is working out.

(You might also want to recall that FBI didn't do polygraph clearances until they were forced to for political reasons.)

Honest, I'm not defending polys: I know myself of one guy who was a completely pure new grad college boy from Utah who could never get a clearance because he got so ajitated at the questions that they couldn't get a clear reading. I'm just pointing out that not only is your scheme not feasible, but that the "secrets" are not particularly secret: I don't think you're going to get a useful result.

The NET Act asserts criminality in the event of deliberate money making or valuable materials copying as opposed to simple breach of copyright.
Is Congress asserting that universities are overlooking that or merely that copyright breaches are possible and not investigated?

This is not real. There are many reasons as to why this is not true. Check out the thread on the ISONEWS forums for more information :

Forum Thread

Also there is no official press release from the DOJ:

DOJ February Press Releases

You're wrong, chief.

But it points to an IP in the DOJ's block:

> host www.isonews.com
www.isonews.com has address 149.101.1.91

> whois 149.101.1.91

OrgName: US Dept of Justice
OrgID: UDJ
[...]


Also, in case you don't believe it, the press release is reproduced on the usdoj.gov webpage:

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/February/03_crm_1 18.htm

So its for real. Add another notch to the DMCA's belt.

-molo

According to this FAQ from Microsoft, java will receive no more support at all in the future. Without using a Windows-only solution such as ActiveX, what other options are there?

For those who are just tuning in...

Back in the mid 90s, when Java hype was at its thickest, some hypesters openly proclaimed that Java would kill Microsoft. And the Dark Lord himself quailed in fear: "This scares the hell out of me."

So, MS responded in a way that only MS could. They used their OS monopoly to neutralize the competitor. MS killed Netscape, leaving IE as the only viable middleware platform. Then they created (and shipped with IE/Windows) their own polluted JRE to fuck with the Java specification.

This gave MS time to develop .NET, which will (among other things) provide an applet capability to replace ActiveX (which has an ass-sucking security model compared to Java).

So have patience, SkyLeach. In a few years everyone will be running some version of Internet Explorer with a .NET CLR. You will be able to write your program in any .NET enabled language and it will run on all those systems.

So you'll have your applet technology. You can have any technology you want, as long as you're willing to wait years for MS to wrest control and approve it.

It's definitely real

And on a similar note, several sites were shutdown and taken over by the government without a conviction of the parties involved.

Nobody stays on top forever. In fact, the really big dogs who like to abuse their power are the ones who tend to fall apart the fastest.

Microsoft is a big, inflexible company. I'm not saying they're going to go chapter 11 or anything, but I do believe that they might become startlingly irrelevant in a very short amount of time like IBM did in the 80's-90's. Ironically, for IBM, it was an inability to see the OS as the real market; for MS, it'll be an inability to see that the OS is no longer the real market...

What you say is true, but it does not then follow that market share is unimportant. Market share is important to gaining and maintaining third-party developer support for your platform, except in those areas where your platform may be the standard in some niche capability, like art and publishing in Apple's case. If I'm the CEO of a software firm, and the year I decide to release Application X there are 10 Apples and 10 Dells in the world, I'll offer my application on both platforms and split my development resources pretty evenly between the two. So if I have, say, 10 developers in my firm, I'll assign 5 to the Apple version and 5 to the Dell version. If after 5 years the trend you use in your example continues, I'll most likely rethink the allocation of my finite resources and steer development toward where I can get the most return for my development costs. Therefore I'll probably put 7 or 8 people on the Dell platform and 2 or 3 on the Apple platform. So while market share may not be everything, it goes too far to say it does not matter, or that only absolute sales matter to Apple.

The Federal Government found the same viscious cycle of market share reinforcing platform support in their Findings of Fact released during the MS anti-trust trial. It's worth a read.

Does this remind anyone of Farenheit 451? You know, where they burn the books so people won't revolt against the government? This is a similar restriction placed upon our libraries and bookstores that silences any mention of a subpoena for a list of books a certain individual has purchased or borrowed.

I still don't understand how Mr. Ashcroft and his DoJ thugs got PATRIOT through Congress. Oh wait, I forgot! Our US Congress was so freaked out by September 11 and thought that somehow if they took away Americans' right to privacy and freedom from harassment that this world would somehow be a better place!

as a offtopic side note, crime went down, and domestic violence vitually disappeared during prohibition.

Nonsense.

The murder rate, for example, clearly trends up, peaking at just about the end of Prohibition. See
this chart for U.S government statistics. The FBI uniform crime statistics -- that give a wide variety of info about crime rates -- don't seem to go back that far, unfortunately, but can you provide any evidence for your claims?

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

I believe the US has similar laws. If nothing else, if this were to install itself on a (government) computer used for interstate commerce then it falls under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Until a few years ago, you were right about this. However, with the advent of the NET (No Electronic Theft) Act, copyright violation is under many circumstances a criminal act as well.

Yes, but fraud and error are common to *all* methods of registrations, not uniquely motor voter.

Anyone from Chicago (me) can tell you that multiple voting ("vote early, vote often") and dead people have gone on for a long time, and often that's not fixed because it benefits the politicians in power. Registration by mail has been available for some time in many states (also now required by motor voter, I didn't know that); at least at the DMV, you have the registrant face-to-face with ID in their hand. I'm intrigued by the critics who say the state can't verify identity (as opposed to eligibility to vote) at the DMV -- who the hell are the states passing out driver's licenses to? Terrorists, in the case of 9/11. Their uncertainty as to identity is a separate problem.

Voter eligibility must be verified, usually after the form is submitted, which is why most states require you to register, say, a month before the election. (ND doesn't require registration at all!) Whether they do their duty is up to them. That some complain about motor voter because they are now "overwhelmed" by applications from their own citizens is shameful. As for the ones who examined their rolls and found multiple registrations and dead peopl, well, good -- isn't examining their rolls what they're supposed to do anyway? Shouldn't they question their own procedures if such contamination continues? How is motor voter to blame for their carelessness, and how many of the bogus registrations predate motor voter? The critics drone on about how terrible registration fraud is -- and I agree -- while assuming rather than proving the act's causality.

Politicially, I can tell you that most of the (quiet) resistance in Congress to motor voter was from Congresspeople fully aware that greater registration would hurt their party (greater registration and turnout reliably favor Democrats -- quite reasonably, opponents of the law charged supporters with being politically motivated, and I'm sure they partially were). The fraud complaint was an insincere or inconsistent argument that goes more to altering some specifics of the law, not its fundamental thrust. Perhaps the best argument IMHO was that Congress shouldn't be telling the states how to handle its voting registration, though I think the law strikes an appropriate balance given historic federal intervention in voting practices to fix state tendencies to erect hurdles to maintain the status quo.

To give you an idea of the political nature of the resistance, some states read the NVRA as requiring them only to register people for federal elections, misleading some to half-register and be able to vote only a partial ballot!

More details. At a minimum the act makes life a lot easier for people like me who move from state to state and appreciate uniform requirements. I doubt the law is perfect, esp. as it is still quite young, but endorse of the basic premise that registration should be simple and convenient, as well as accurate. Increasing registration may or may not yet be producing more voters, but I can say from experience that the potential for get-out-the-vote drives is much greater when most people are eligible rather than being precluded by something they forgot to do a months earlier (and get-out-the-vote people can skip the extra get-people-registered drive). The only way to overcome voter apathy, the principal cause of low turnout, is to draw more and more citizens into the process so that voting becomes easy, familiar, and desired.