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Why Human Rights Requires Free Software
andyo writes "Why Human Rights Requires Free Software: Report on a practitioner's view of the critical role free software plays in the work of human rights activists around the globe."
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No no no no no no, that's not what the article says at all!
The point of the article is that in order to do Human Rights work, the all partions of your data collection and processing must be transparent and above reproach. Free Software facilitates this by letting all parties examine the code behind the data presented so that bias and obfuscation are minimized. Basically, the subject of the article wants to be able to show people human rights statistics and data without having to resort to expensive software where what's "going on under the hood" is not apparent to all. That's all. There's nothing about how Free Software is a basic human right. It's just a tool used by some of those who seek to protect and defend human rights, a means to an end.
It's not like someone is trying to outlaw the writing of Free software, or suppress the Free software movement.
Unfortunatelly there are several initiatives (mandatory hadrware DRM in PC among them) that will render free software useless as non-interoperable with commercial one. This is as close as you can get without explicitly stating it to outlaw free software.
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
It's not like someone is trying to outlaw the writing of Free software, or suppress the Free software movement
You might be wrong about this. The Senate currently considering a bill which would require all personal computers to have DRM built in and Microsoft holds the patent on DRM Operating Systems. If Microsoft refuses to license this to any other companies or prices the license out of reach, this would effectivly outlaw Linux and any other OSS/Free project that either doesn't have access to the license or can't afford the license.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power - Benito Mussoli
You begin a good "straw man" attack.
The notion that software expressed in source code is a form of speech has been established in U.S. courts, at least. An attack on the "right" to free software is an attack against a category of free speech, and would represent an erosion of the entire category of free speech rights.
No?Maybe not in the U.S.,
maybe not right now.
In the recent past, the idea of free software was seriously threatened by a number of high-profile cases, mostly around the topic of encryption. There are many pending and emerging cases involving patents, so-called 'intellectual property' and Digital Rights. All of these represent an effort by various established interests to classify free software as an infrigement on their rights.
Nobody expected Habeus Corpus to come under attack in the United States, 18 months ago. Surprising and drastic things happen in a very short time.
The artical in question does not even advance a claim like this.It is proposed that all software used by Human Rights workers in the field should be free software (Software Libre,) wherever it is at all possible.
It is also advanced that there are inherent inequalities in the control and trust relationships with proprietary vendors - which might be acceptable parts of a social contract for home use or doing business. Nonetheless this is a repugnant situation and represent an unacceptable risk to the mission of the workers and the well-being of subjects in Human Rights field-work.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."