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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.)
What about the BSD family?
Of all of my local MEPs that I've emailed, Caroline Lucas (Green) has been both the most responsive, and the most supportive of our position. If they were only pro-Euro, they'd get my vote every time...
(Christopher Hume (LibDem) has sent me a number of letters, the most recent of which (16/09/2003) says that "software should not be patentable simply because it is running on generic computer equipment", and goes on to say that they want a Directive to "enforce the original EPC, rather than codifying what has become common practice - and illegal practice - of allowing the patenting of computer-implemented inventions".)
Being unemployed (hence having lots of free time), living in western germany (hence being able to travel to Brussels easily) and being a free software supporter, even with some experience in political work (from being a students representative of various kinds back when life rocked), I'd like to contribute to effective lobbying in the EU. However, the only really serious EU-wide organization seems to be the FSF Europe, and I happen to disagree with the FSF on some major points. (And there's Attac, which I happen to disagree on more points with.) There doesn't seem to be any organized forums for european FLOSS supporters outside the FSF Europe right now, or is there? Maybe something more "Open Source"-related? Is there a way for someone who's experience ranges from writing code over writing press releases to organizing demonstations and legal help for demonstrators to throwing yoghurt at malevolent policemen to effectively contribute, without having to adopt the FFS mantra?
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
I didn't participate, but I read the mailinglist of the organizers and saw a short video of the highlights. Naturally, estimations of the number of participants of demonstrations are never precise and may vary depending on the observer. But to my best knowledge the organizers talked about 300 people, which I feel is a realistic number.
I was watching a US House of Reps "Worms and cyber security" subcommmitee on C-SPAN the other day. Testifying before the Congressmen were the following - Microsoft Corp senior security strategist Philip Reitinger, VeriSign VP Kenneth Silva, Lawrence Hale, director of the Federal Computer Incident Response Center, Christoper Wysopal consultant for @stake Inc, some other Russian security consultant, and a few other random folks. The chairman of the committee asked the Verisign PHB and the two consultants if there were any security benefits in running open-source software, and which was more secure, open or closed. I almost shat myself. Here was the perfect opportunity to hear some glowing reviews of open source. Instead the two consultants, who seemed decently knowledgeable, and long winded on all other issues merely said that there are flaws in all types of software, and they would "guess" that the frequency of security flaws were the same as for closed source. Although the guy from @stake did mention that the theory behind open source security was that "the more eyes, the better", he also countered it with noting that most users of open source wouldn't be able to fix the code when a vulnerability was found. That was it. No detailed explanation about anything. Just a brush off that was not quite as long as their testimony on why ipv6 wouldn't offer any extra security over ipv4. Luckily the Verisign bastard was there to add his two cents. To paraphrase him - "I would agree with their, (the consultants) testimony, but I would like to add that often the people who write open source software are not professionals". Then he took another shot mentioning "that often worms affect open-source software too". Often... I wonder what he considers "often". How can he even trot out the word "often" to describe the frequency of worms that affect open-source software when there are millions of Windows boxes that are constantly being hit by worms. He then added - "We must resist the temptation to demonize software vendors and other members of the network community. The finger pointing is often misplaced and in most cases does more harm than good." It was quite the interesting hearing, and gives me a bit of insight into what kind of info our Government is getting about open source.
Anti-social? My code is just platform-specific.
Of course, the main factor here that helped is that the positions of the MEPs were not formulated to win campaign contributions from lobbyists.
In the "land of democracy", the chances that a handful of people can actually get people to listen without massive campaign budgets are a lot smaller.
As I've said, though the EU has done some very wrongheaded things with respect to legislation and technology, the odds on getting them to stop doing them may be considerably better than in the USA if individuals will organize and put in their time and individual-scale money to . . . do something. The war isn't lost there yet. Perhaps it won't be.
The one point that I think based on the article didn't get made as strongly as it should be is that NOT passing software patent bills gives the EU an advantage the USA with respect to individual and small business contributions to technology of the sort that leads to businesses that provides jobs and that the EU can tax.
Remember that the committments of legislators to follow the lead of the US aren't as strong as that of US legislators who got campaign contribution from interested multinationals, i.e. except for a few, I'd guess that a great many are willing to listen to reason if the reason is put in terms that they can understand.
Props to the people who lobbied on behalf of us all.
Tech Public Policy stuff