Lobbying For Linux

Telex4 writes "Slashdot has heard a lot lately about why software patents are bad, and the passage of the legislation in the EU. But other than the online demo and a few pictures of the demonstration outside the European Parliament, Slashdotters hear little about the real behind-the-scenes lobbying. I've just put an article up on Newsforge describing and discussing my experiences lobbying inside the Parliament that might shed a little light on what we mortal geeks can do to save ourselves. There are some accompanying photos on my web site for those who like visual aids." (NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.)

Comments

Thank you.

[CGP314]

I just want to say congratulations for what you have done. Many of us bitch and complain about these issues, but you took time out of your life to do something about it. I just wanted to thank you for that.

Lobby for Open Standards

[Brandybuck]

Don't lobby for Linux. Besides being a FreeBSD user hating to see EU nations ban everything but Linux, it also doesn't do anything to correct the pervasion monoculture in governments. While 100% use of Linux is better than 100% use of Windows, 100% use of anything is still bad.

So lobby for Open Source instead. Lobby for Open Standards. Those will also be much easier to get acceptance.

Re:Lobby for Open Standards

[axxackall]

It's easier to lobby Linux at first. It opens a mind of users. After that it's easier for them to notice other open source systems.

Besides, 100% of Linux is not a monoculture. There are dozens of distros. There is a competition between Gnome vs KDE vs misc managers. There are various programming languages to code the same projects. Well, even inside Perl there are always more than one way of doing the ame thing (according to Laryy Wall, the creator of Perl). Finally, there will be always PostgreSQL vs MySQL and Emacs vs vi (and even GNU/Emacs vs Xemacs for Emacs winners) - what kind of monoculture do you see here?

By the way, all those "one vs another" things are OS agnostic. If the decision maker will open the mind enough to get into Linux - in no time the person will notice that all those "vs" are the same inside BSD.

But if you will bring "Linux vs BSD" right to the lobbying process, those non-techs will decide: "OK, let's them at first decide Linux or BSD and THEN we'll see if it's worthy against Windows!" - you don't want THAT decision, don't you?

Re:Cluelessness

[AvantLegion]

It is impossible for an individual to know everything about everything.

If the average Slashdotter sat down with the average politician, and each spoke about political issues, the Slashdotter would educate the politician on computer issues, and the politician would educate the Slashdotter on a hell of a lot more.

Software (and copyrights/patents) is one tiny aspect of what these people deal with on a daily basis. It's important for people to step up and communicate with them, as the article writer did, because there's no way for the politician and assistants to keep up on EVERY issue with the kind of depth that people around here do on a small handful of issues that pertain to our careers/hobbies.

Re:What to do?

[cobbaut]

Remember, when writing to an MEP that they are real persons, usually with real lives and real interest in making a better Europe.

So be polite, be very clear on the subject, be fair.

Several weeks ago i wrote an e-mail to 15 Belgian MEP's and some of them replied. From those replies i understood that they are very aware of the subject (yes some MEP's really are very intelligent).

cheers,
pol :)

Re:Smug bullshit

[panurge]

Trade issues like IP and patentability are among the roots of wars, famine and poverty. It is a small step from this issue to the availability of cheap AIDS medicines in Third World countries, or the exploitation of Third World farmers by Western control of genetically modified monocultures. If we want to do something about international justice we need to start at home - and that means things we understand better than most. I am not qualified to explain the problems of GM crops to a representative, but I am qualified to explain the problems created by software patents. So that's what I should do. Don't criticise the people trying to bring down the wall with pickaxes because other people are using hammers.

News flash

[s20451]

News flash: Career politicians, like every other human, are not experts in everything.