Slashdot Mirror
EC Dumps Open Source Conference
jaruz writes "MERIT is no longer organising the conference on the topic of Open Standards and Libre Software in Government at UNESCO Paris, November 24-26, 2003. Until now, MERIT was responsible for the logistics and through the FLOSSPOLS project, EC funding for the conference. This is now wholly withdrawn. They 'have taken this decision in consultation with the European Commission, whose support for this conference was earlier being provided through the proposed FLOSSPOLS project at MERIT.'"
MERIT still has their subscription to Forbes.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
why did they do that? aren't communists for open source?
Why are they pulling support? If it's because they don't have the extra money, you can't really blame them. Same goes with lack of interest. But if this is some sort of anti OSS stance they are taking, then it's something to be concerned about.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
...I would blame Canada.
But today, IT IS FRANCE's FAULT!
Stupid French! I spit out your wine!
Maybe it's good to check the links first before putting a story on /.. I could not find anything about the EC dumping this when I followed the link. I would expect it to be on the MERIT website! Therefore as far as I'm concerned this is an unconfirmed rumour and thus no news.
-- Cheers!
Come on, isn't it obvious?!?!?! They're behind everything! Don't forget to re-run lilo and adjust your tin foil hat!
The FLOSSPULLERS recently withdrew their BRIKNIT from this year's HoseCon. The resulting void has opened a gaping rip in the Plesk market.
Inconceivable!
"Our research and teaching focus on the economics of technological change and innovation."
yeah.... and now your research and teaching focus on how to change your focus according to lobby groups and political climates. Weak bastards, if you're going to do something, do it. Don't pull out at the last moment because you are scared or whatever. OSS is the hottest stuff re: "technological change and innovation" and open standards are more so. They have backed away from their research interests, and I wonder why.
I certainly won't be holding them in any esteem - their theory is based in economics so this is not surprising. Economics departments are not exactly intelligent when it comes to theory or recognising the role and position of the university in public life and a capitalist system.
In fact, I will take this opportunity to dis economics in general as a discipline. You cannot be critical, in any sense of the word, when you are still tied to capital. Intellectuals in the humanities have moved light-years ahead of their economics counterparts in theory of society. Economics is one aspect, ignore all others to the detriment of your own theory.
There is nothing critical about economics, they are given more prestige than they deserve (any prestige is too much). It is just a speculative, poorly theorized discipline that struggles to keep up with modern theory - it is no surprise they can't handle issues of technological change and innovation.
Where is this information from?
All the eurocentric news that's fit to print...just as well, it'll be at the bottom of the front page in the morning. And they have the nerve to complain about a "US-centric" baseball poll.
hehehe, reminds me of an old joke:
What does Michael use for dental floss?
Pubic Hair! (Michael uses Taco's because Taco has 'chunky' jism.)
Last night I received notification from the director of MERIT at Maastricht that they had withdrawn participation from the conference. Prof. Soete also indicated that this decision was taken in "consultation" with the European Commision. However, this neither indicates whether it was the EC choice to withdraw, or that MERIT for other reasons choose to no longer sponser or act as an intermediary. In the latter case, perhaps the EC would find a different conduit for funding.
Originally I had been asked to participate at this conference primarely to talk about recent work in developing free software solutions built around GNU Bayonne to enable e-government access for the blind. I knew they were having some type of difficulty with sponsorship and funding. I think it is unfortunate this happened, but I have seen no facts to indicate what precisely had gone wrong, although I am naturally curious.
David
I can not understand all these damn groups with funny Cryptic damn names.
Can you story submitters please speak some damn english !
DAMN == Don't Argue Mookie News.
What is the future of Open Source and Free Software? I asked myself that very question because Open Source and Free Software is the most revolutionary movement today. It is changing everything.
To answer this question I went to slashdot.org, this website, since slashdot is known across the internet when it comes to Open Source and Free Software. I read the stories and the comments. I read the comments at the -1 threshold because I wanted to read real people's opinions and knowledge on Open Source and Free Software, not the sanitized version that gets modded up. What I found was very interesting.
So, what is the future of Open Source and Free Software? Wideness. That's right. Wideness. This concept of wideness is so powerful that it is invading domains beyond computer software. Take HDTV for instance. It is widescreen compared to normal tvs. TV is becoming wider.
The best examples of wideness are from slashdot of course. First, page widening posts. Slashdot pages weren't wide enough so they have to be widened manually. In the future slashdot pages will be wider.
I also found links to the goatse.cx website. Again, another example of wideness, namely a wide open anus. People who use Open Source and Free Software aren't boring heterosexuals. They are homosexuals, bisexuals, etc. As the goatse.cx website shows wideness is being added to the sexuality of Open Source and Free Software users.
Like me, you are probably excited about this wide future. The following email shows the future is closer than you think.
From: "Larry Augustin"
To: "Company - all"
Subject: Acquisition of latest OSDN holding
As you may be aware, our stock certificates are now unfit to even wipe our own asses in the restrooms. However, soon this will all change with our latest opensource acquisition. This is such a revolutionary paradigm shift that we have decided to coin a new term for it: "WideOpensource". The following letter was recently sent to the management of our prospect:
From: "Larry Augustin"
To: contrib@goatse.cx
Subject: Open source business opportunity
Dear Sir,
We at OSDN are continually looking to expand our growing network of opensource-related web real estate. Through intense analysis of comment traffic on our premier site, SlashDot.org, we have determined that your site holds considerable value to the community at large. As recent IDC surveys have shown, your site is one of the 10 most popular on the Internet. That, combined with its decidedly opensource bent, makes it a prime target for OSDN banner ads, our flagship product. We would like to acquire your site and employ you as a member of our OSDN team. Please consider this carefully, you aren't likely to see an opportunity like this every day!
Love,
Larry
Sounds like the project lacks merit...
WTF?
There's another writeup of this story over at tubgirl tech archive
I'm European, albeit not French. According to the site, "free/open source software [is] commonly referred to as Libre Software in Europe" - WTF? This is the first time I've seen the term used. I do know that the French are very scared of English words being too commonplace in their language, but this is ridicilous. They already use "software" in the phrase, what's so bad in saying "free" like the rest of the (English speaking, the site is in English anyway) net?
Still don't care.
Corporate ho's. You sold your soul long time ago. Go away. You are irrelevant!
Sluts! CmdrTaco. You are the worst of them all. Slut! You might as well fuck for money! Better business than this shit. Stop influencing youngsters!
-- askien
Wasn't that the followup to the BUTTCHEZ Program?
This is going to really FUBAR the EFTs for this year's RBITRON. Can we get an ETA on the OMSCO for this LPT? Otherwise, everything is just going to be FEWYT.
This could be about the corruption they have in the commission? They blamed it on the workers, but surely the commissioner should take the blame on himself, like ministers does it in our governments (well, mostly). Maybe they are affraid of using any money at the moment, because of this event lately.
... this is a first for me (could be wrong, though)
BTW, typically the EU never tell what particular institution that pays for a project
(yes this can be compared with sex)
EU involvement in Open Source is like your mother-in-law taking a keen interest in your pornography collection.
The European institutions are about throwing large amounts of money at people who's only real skill is to be good candidates for large subsidies. I once spent a day in Luxembourg getting information on various EU projects for IT research and development. _Never_ _again_.
Large sums of money, or even the remote promises of large sums of money, do not produce good software nor do they promote good practice.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
You sound like a guy I had work for me some few years ago. Fully capable of doing his job, but was afraid to make a decision. Always deferred to a fellow worker for decisions. However, if anyone disagreed with something he said or did, he was convinced that it was because of his race, and never accepted that fact that someone had an idea different from his. He, unwittingly, was the only racist in the group. Next time, keep your comment short enough so that if you really have something to say, people will take time to read it.
I for one am sick and tired of my RedHat Linux box never coming down with viruses, never crashing unexpectedly, and coming fully loaded with a wide range of development tools for the low low price of free.
After reading your post, I've decided I'm going right out and spending several thousand dollars on security hole ridden proprietary Microsoft products that still won't match the robustness of my open source operating system. I'll show those inferior open source programmers!
Anyway, point being is that no new contracts are currently being sign, 60%+ of contracts are being terminated, and people like the company I consult for are sitting like ducks on a 2 month extension until end of November hoping that by then they will sign (something they told us was going to happen in June). My boss just got fired, as did a colleague and 2 developers. Until we get the contract (and therefore money) we are having to cut back big time.
Eurostat's in a mess currently, fraud everywhere. Oh, and not to mention that there may be a mole in the Agriculture DG. Apparently being bribed (easily) for leaking information regarding crop values/quantities (not quite sure what, but it means some people can make lots of money with that info).
Anyway, they may get their funding back, but not yet!
From someone living in Brussels...Karem Lore
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
In the spirit of your post, I submit to you that the main reason you don't see people of color involved in Open Source is they're too damned smart to do any work unless they get paid for it.
These Open Source Supremecists, are driven by Utopian Socialist dreams(like the model racist, hitler), and through this bigoted delusion, work for free. They mask their 4th Reich goals behind facades of "labors of love".
considering that freedom, & open/honest communications/commerce are standard components of the creator's newclear power plan
we sure as heck wouldn't want to be won of those georgewellian fuddite, southern baptist freemason, payper liesense softwar gangster, stock markup fraud execrable, when the big flash occurs.
unprecedented evile et AL, has no chance vs. the planet/population rescue initiative (formerly unknown as the oil for babies program).
the daze of of the corepirate nazi hostage ransom scams is WANing into coolapps/the abyss, at the speed of right. no transfusions of fauxking felonious billyonerrors ill gotten gains (fud monIE), will prevent the planet/population transformation.
for each of the creator's innocents harmed, there is a badtoll that must/will be repaid by you/US, as the felonous perpetrators of the patentdead life0cide against humankind, will not be available to make reparations.
consult with/trust in yOUR creator.... that's the spirit, moving you.
you only fear what you do not understand
name calling changes nothing
It hasn't been the EC for some time, it's the EU (European Union) now. Before that it was the EC, further back the EEC and probably something else even further back.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
MERIT now organizes a conference for the patent lobby (patent lawyer interest groups)!!
l .
[ EPIP 2 ] Copyright and database protection, patents and research tools, and other challenges to the intellectual property system
Maastricht, November 24-25
On November 24 and 25 of this year a conference will be held at MERIT in Maastricht on the topic "Copyright and database protection, patents andresearch tools, and other challenges to the intellectual property system". This is the second meeting of the EPIP (European Policy for Intellectual Property) network, funded by the European Commission and lead by Dominique Foray and Jacques Mairesse. The partners of EPIP are IMRI from Universite Paris-Dauphine in France, MERIT from University Maastricht in the Netherlands, INNO-tec from the Munich School of Management in Germany, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Italy, Roskilde University in Denmark, and the Santiago de Compostella University in Spain. For more information of the network, please visit the website at:
http://www.dauphine.fr/imri/EPIP/welcome.htm
The first EPIP meeting took place in Munich on the magnificent premises of the European Patent Office with over hundred participants, lawyers and economists, academics as well as practitioners (from the business world and the patent offices) from Europe and the United States. The papers presented at this conference touched upon many themes and challenges of the intellectual property rights system. The program of the Munich conference is also available on the website.
The next conference, while open to other themes, will essentially focus on research tools and databases. Both research tools and databases are major inputs of science and technology. In the view of fostering their impact on the economy through commercialization, governments have allowed IP to be taken on certain inventions, in the form of patents (on research tools) and sui generic rights (data bases). Whereas the US pioneered the former, Europe is leading the latter. The central issue is to strike the balance right between the conditions needed for commercialization (which often requires some exclusivity) with the conditions associated with scientific progress (open access). Should Europe reform its database directive along the lines of the United States? What should be the legal environment for the commercialization and diffusion of public databases? Should research tools be exempted from patent protection or other intellectual property protection mechanisms for the sake of scientific and technological development?
These are some of the questions that we would like to see discussed at the conference.
We aim at assembling leading scholars and thinkers on the contentious issue of ways and merits of protecting research tools and databases.
Some of the confirmed speakers and participants:
Dominique Foray, Univ. Paris-Dauphine
Jacques Mairesse, CREST/INSEE
Dominique Guellec, OECD
Jean-Michel Dalle, IMRI
Bronwyn Hall, Univ. of California at Berkeley
Paul Uhlir, National Academy of Sciences
Stephen Mark Maurer, Univ. of California at Berkeley
John Walsh, University of Tokyo
Peter Schroeder, Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, Netherlands
Dietmar Harhoff, Munich School of Management
Stephan Wagner, Munich School of Management
Paul David, Stanford University
Anselm Kamperman Sanders, Univ. Maastricht
Robin Cowan, MERIT
Luc Soete, MERIT
Pierre Mohnen, MERIT
Elad Harison, MERIT
Brian Kahin, Univerity of Michigan
Pierre Jean Benghozi, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris
Paul Wouters, The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Wilfred Dolfsma, Erasmus University
Tettu Luukonen, ETLA, Finland
Rene Vleugels, Univ. Maastricht
More information on the program of the conference and of ways to get to Maastricht will be made available shortly.
Local organisor: Pierre Mohnen
31-43-388 3869
E-mail: p.mohnen@merit.unimaas.nl
...per$ua$ively.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
This one's cutting your stuff with something *s*c*a*r*y*.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...but now I wouldn't be so sure.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Euros are finally getting on the bus with Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush.
This happened the same week that France and Germany voted in the UN Security Council to approve of US rule in Iraq.
Now Freedom Fries can go back to being called "pommes (de terre) frites" and French Fries.
No more anthrax in Le Gare du Nord, they hope!
dear jaruz, michael,
/. (incorrect) comments regarding the support of MERIT for free software.
we didn't make a public announcement, so we didn't put it up on the MERIT website so that it could be confirmed. as questions have been raised regarding the authenticity of the announcement and MERIT's commitment to free software, please note that the following letter will be posted to the FLOSS home page as soon as possible - by monday, at any rate - so that it can be "verified". i have added the last paragraph to respond to
given some comments that MERIT "supports the patent lobby" i would also like to clarify that several of the economists listed in the EPIP conference programme were signatories and/or authors of the Economists' Letter against Software Patents sent to the European Parliament.
Moreover, Luc Soete, Director of MERIT, and I both spoke at the Sep 17th conference in the European Parliament against software patents.
best wishes,
Rishab Ghosh
Project leader FLOSS/FLOSSPOLS
MERIT
----
As director of MERIT at the University of Maastricht, I would like to inform you
that we are no longer organising the conference on the topic of Open Standards
and Libre Software in Government at UNESCO Paris, November 24-26, 2003. Until
now, MERIT was responsible for the logistics and through the FLOSSPOLS project,
EC funding for the conference. This is now wholly withdrawn.
We have taken this decision in consultation with the European Commission, whose
support for this conference was earlier being provided through the proposed
FLOSSPOLS project at MERIT.
We sincerely regret the inconvenience this may cause you. For more information
please contact us by e-mail at nov2003@infonomics.nl
For MERIT Prof. Dr. Luc Soete
Director, MERIT
Universiteit Maastricht
PO Box 616, 6200MD
Maastricht, the Netherlands
Tel: +31 43 388 3875
----
MERIT remains fully committed to its research activities in the area of Free/Libre/Open Source
Software through the EC-funded FLOSS project, and the area of FLOSS and government through
the follow-up project FLOSSPOLS. The 2-year
FLOSSPOLS project, which includes research, studies, surveys and public events related to
government and free/libre/open source software will commence later this year.
More information on the project(s) can be found on the FLOSS home page, flossproject.org
Participants of the conference have all received an e-mail with the announcement.
What is LIBRE software?
Well look at this for an answer?
The Libre Society
the conference is wholly without MERIT
(ducks/)
home page
I've come across this several times in English sites; there's nothing new here (I thought when I first saw it). The English language is full of foreign words that were absorbed into the language when there didn't exist a native equivalent.
Most Americans already know that the Spanish word "gratis" (no cost) would translate into English as free. Funny that became better known before "libre", the Spanish word (and probably other romance languages) for "free as in freedom" that would unfortunately also just translate as "free".
Or does it also bother you that you can find the French word entrepreneur in an English dictionary? Hopefully you'll eventually be able to find libre in there too -- it'll avoid a lot of confusion (besides, it's an important concept -- it probably does deserve its own word).
I don't know what you're accusing the French of besides, the use of Libre with GPL software in English is really not new (maybe not exactly commonplace either, but I have run into it enough times to think that it was time that "libre" became better known, especially since "gratis" is already understood by enough Americans to hear it in commercials or on TV. Afterall, "libre" is a much more important concept than "gratis").
No weird French conspiracy here, just another important concept (and foreign word) hopefully becoming part of the English language. That's what I see.
I submitted the same story - with the remark that said announcement (made by email to subscribers) hadn't made it to their website yet. Strange way of ending such an event though..
;-). =Ch=
Having said that, it could be a bizarrely accurate spam as I didn't trace the mail back
Insert
They are sick of mediocrity, socialism and the hippies that open source fosters. You see Europe already has plenty of all that.