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French PM Unreceptive To RMS
An anonymous reader writes "Six month after the publication of very bad amendments to French DRM law proposal, Richard Stallman has been pushed back by the chief of security team of French Prime minister.
On Friday 9th of June 2006 at 3.30pm, Richard Stallman, president of Free Software Foundation, led a delegation composed by Frédéric Couchet (Free Software Foundation France) and Christophe Espern (EUCD.INFO initiative) to meet the French Prime minister in order to talk about the French DRM law proposal and to deliver the EUCD.INFO petition signed by more than 165,000 French residents. Richard Stallman and his friends were pushed back by the chief of security team. "
Is this really a news story? Someone without an appointment tries to seek a personal audience with a world leader and is denied? That's not anti-DRM, it's just common sense.
with a head of state. This was simply a stunt to gain exposure. I am all for supporting the proliferation of free software and the free software movement, but this will only marginalize the cause yet once again at the hands of RMS.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
So Richard Stallman approached the French Prime Minister's delegation, and tried to force their way though to have a private word with him about DRM laws? ...
... That just isn't normal behaviour.
Even outside of politics that isn't acceptable behaviour. How would you feel if you ran a business and as you left the office the CEO of another company was trying to convince you to sell your shares to him, following you about and such?
Normal people make a meeting... Or if failing that they write the grievance down and hand deliver it. They don't make a run at the guy, and try and get it words and then act like a victim when it doesn't work.
Damn right the security pushed him back... He should have been asked to leave if he acts like that.
but he is the last person that should be representing the free software community to politicians. You need a clean cut person in a suit who is familiar with the politics of that nation. Why do think people hire lobbyists instead of appealing to politicians directly?
You missed a step:
Step 1.5: Try to schedule a meeting with the leader and get ignored
I'd be pissed off too if I represented 165,000 people and was twice blown off by some "leader" who was obviously too busy to do things like actually listen to his constituency!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I am an American, and I have to say to mr. Stallman:
Please wear a suit when trying to meet with foreign dignitaries.
And at least wear your hair back and trim your beard a little. You look like a hippy slob, and that was how you were received.
You do free software a disservice by appearing like don't you give a crap. You expect them to take you seriously looking like you don't take them seriously?
meh
How were they supposed to find some better method when the PM's office wouldn't even dignify their request with a response, pray tell? If the secretary had even made an attempt to arrange something that would be one thing, but being ignored completely is unacceptable.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You may not agree with Stallman's tactics, but the message this sends is clear: The people passing today's draconian intellectual property laws they are NOT representing the general public -- they are representing coporate interests.
Bill Gates is a citizen of the US, just like Stallman. Gates and Stallman take opposing viewpoints on the particular issue, and both are well known and intelligent individuals with strong arguments. However, only Gates was allowed to talk to the PM.
Stallman tried to get an audience with the PM, but was refused. It was only after the refusal that he tried to just "barge in", and there is *nothing wrong with this*. This kind of thing has happened throughout history -- a corrupt goverment has favored a certain group of people, and the unfavored group resorts to any tactics necessary to get themesleves heard.
Those of you who are criticizing Stallman, saying thing like "duh, I could have told you this would fail"... You're totally missing the point. Stallman also knew it would fail. Why else would he have a cameraman on hand ready to document the event. He's making a point, and it seems like a lot of people are missing it.
In a very real sense, Stallman represents the little guy, and Gates represents the corporate interests. In a very real sense, the goverments are NOT listening to the people. When the governments are only hearing one side of the story on DRM/copyright, it should be obvious that the laws are going to be heavily biased. And *this* is what is bad. Nobody from the opposite end of the spectrum is being listened to, and we are LOSING OUR RIGHTS.
Stallman is out there putting his ass on the line to show people this, and hopefully reach a larger audience than the few geeks on Slashdot who already know how bad everything has gotten. Before you get too critical of his methods, ask yourself what *you* have done to help turn the tide. Because sitting on your ass complaining about the shutdown of The Pirate Bay isn't accomplishing a damn thing.
I don't doubt that the prime minister has no intention of meeting with RMS, but in fairness their request to see the PM was two weeks before they showed up. It is quite possible, and in fact likely, that the PM of France might actually be so busy as to not be able to schedule a meeting within 2 weeks. We're talking about DRM here, not a pending German invasion. It can wait. I doubt there are many world leaders you could get a meeting with in less than two weeks.
Finding other idiots on
The PM doesn't have to schedule it himself; that's what secretaries are for. If nothing else, two weeks should have been enough time for the secretary to at least reply with something like "we received your request, and it's waiting to be processed" (assuming they sent it by some reasonably speedy method).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
... not to receive RMS.. and not a question of planning, or appointment of whatever... Matignon was warned for a few weeks of his coming, and could have make him be received by any small office-counselor, as humiliating as it would have been, some "chargé de mission" or whatever. but instead decided to leave him 100m away from the place. That's exacly how was treated the free software position about DRM, internet-filtering dispositions, articles forcing DRM into any software, and so many other atrocities commited into the DADVSI law in the name of "protecting the authors". ... well the authors of Free Software were just unheard.
For the love of Pete... This has to be the most damaging form of protest ever. Folks! Wake up! This is counter-productive! France is voting for a new president and a new parliament next year. Why don't you go and make your case to Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozi? Why aren't you showing your petition to your MP? What are you trying to achieve by meeting a prime minister who has less than a year in office, and has 30% approval rate? You may think that there is nothing to life other than being anti-DRM and pro-OSS, but over 10% of the French population is unemployed, the suburbs were burning last fall and student protests were paralyzing the country a couple months ago. Have a bit of perspective here. The dude has to prioritize. He knows he ain't staying, and pissing you off is probably an acceptable trade-off to him building his legacy with the population at large. So please, please, please stop the whining and come back when you have a better game plan. Actions as such are your cause.
Letters were sent a few days ago to tell the day and hour of his coming
The arrogance of that is simply astounding. "I shall arrive, you shall se me." Pardon? It doesn't help that he insists on showing up looking like Robbie Coltrane on holiday and certainly not combined with that downright papal attitude. Newsflash, Richard, the rest of the world DOES expect to be treated with respect and that includes making appointments--in reasonable time--and showing up properly attired. Oh yes, you're an eccentric genius...yeah, and he's the Prime Minister of France. Wear a fucking suit and comb your goddamned hair, you lazy slob.
Seriously, the khakis and polo shirt may partially balance off the boxcar hobo facial hair for your normal everyday operations, but it doesn't show a proper degree of respect for the person you're trying to meet who happens to be an elected official. Remember the hooplah about the college girls' soccer team who met the President in nice sun dresses and flip-flops? Just a hint: you don't half look as good as those girls -- maybe less. Work harder at your appearance. They did you a favor by not letting you in the door. You'd have embarrassed yourself and us looking like that.
When you are a leader, delegate, or some other form of representative, you need to give the proper impression of the people you are representing. It may well be that F/OSS people are old hippies with too much facial hair and a beer gut, but you do them a grave disservice to paint them that way. By showing up with that list of 165,000 people, you have appointed yourself their representative, and you painted them with a bad brush from first glance. You need to be their best face. The impression of you is the impression of them.
You want respect (and that's what this is all about, right?), you need to:
If anything, those who insist that people in positions of respect (managers, political officials, etc.) listen to them even if they dress in a slovenly way are the ones guilty of assuming superiority -- they think they are (or their message is) important enough to disregard the manners and cultural expectations of their audience. That is, simply put, snobbery of the worst kind -- it masquerades as egalitarianism.
You know why people are taken more seriously in a suit? Because it's our culture's accepted formal attire for business. If your audience is important enough, you will respect their culture. If their culture says "formal meetings involve suits", then you should wear a suit. Simple.
We already implicitly acknowledge this when it comes to other formalities like the exchange of business cards, shaking of hands, etc. For example, in Japan, one offers and accepts business cards with both hands, out of respect for the Japanese culture. In France, as in the US, one wears a suit to meet with those in positions of respect or power (politicians, management, etc.).
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
The PM of France might just have a few things on his plate that he considers more important.
This may be true, given that our PM is up shit creek with no paddle as he is implied in a major scandal involving weapon trading, false document and intra government back stabbing.
But OTOH all this DRM issue is being discussed in both parliaments at this moment, and to be fair, this was indeed the correct timing. Furthermore, at the moment the french government is making itself very unpopular by pushing laws without leaving much space for a proper democratic discussion.
May I use your sig please?
You do realize that the French system of government has changed several times since they gave us help during the Revolutionary War, right?
In fact, the France of that time period was ruled by a king, who gave us help during the Revolutionary war. Considering that the help didn't even come from a democracy representing the people of France of that time, exactly how much credit should we give their descendents today for that help?
I mean, let's take a slightly broader view of history, for just a moment.
During the Revolutionary War, England was ruled by a king, and its government oppressed Americans. Since then, its regime has changed. Now it's ruled by a democratic parliament, and its government and people are generally friendly towards Americans. Americans generally give the British people credit for their friendship.
During the Revolutionary War, France was ruled by a king, and its government helped Americans. Since then, its regime has changed. Now it's ruled by a democratic parliament, and its government and people are generally unfriendly to Americans. Americans generally give the French people credit for their unfriendship.
It's not that we've forgotten what the French did for us during the Revolutionary War. It's that we've also remembered what they've done for us lately.
By your logic, we should always hate the British for what they did during the Revolutionary war. And we should never forgive the Germans for Nazism and the Holocaust. And of course the Swedes will always be nothing more than big jerks, on account of the whole Viking thing.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
There is a thing called protocol. Diplomatic protocol has many functions, one of them is to serve as a spam filter.
It sounds as if what they did was to send the letter to the French PM's office directly where it would be mixed in with all the letters from the other hundred thousand or so cranks writing to him. The chance that the letter would even be read by a minor functionary in that time is small. The chance of a prompt reply smaller.
Correct protocol in the case of RMS would have been to send the letter to the French Embassy in the US and request a meeting with the minister in charge of technology. Demanding a meeting with the PM is pretty presumptuous for a private individual who is not even a citizen of the country concerned.
I was really hoping that this was going to be a case where I could say that I had zero sympathy for either party. However it appears that only RMS was acting in a meglamonaical fashion in this particular case.
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Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
"Being true to yourself is the only source of respect here, conformity to someone else's standards,"
Yes and no. For starters, he is representing 165,000 people, so in addition to himself, he needs to be true to those 165,000 people. Second, politics is a job for salesmen/saleswomen. It is not enough to say to the PM "This is who we are, this is what we think, and this is a list of a huge number of voters who agree with us!" They have to sell the idea to the PM. And in this position, your previous point is partially true, if the PM doesn't think you look respectable, he won't respect you. You could have the greatest issue ever, with the whole country supporting you, but if you send someone who looks like a pressure washed street bum in to talk to the PM, your spokes person won't likely get a word in.
The PM of France probably gets thousands of requests similar to the ones that RMS sent in. Some undersecretary flips through them and determines who gets in. Will that person schedule some of the PM's limited time to 3 guys with a petition which would likely have little gain for the country, or schedule some time with the leader of an international software firm that employees thousands and provides software and services to a huge portion of the economy? It's a no brain-er.
To get philosophical about the whole deal, society is extremely discriminating. Everyone is, it is the norm. Some forms of discrimination are frowned on (race, sex, heritage, religion, etc...) but many more forms are not only acceptable, but expected. Appearance, money, affluence, education, clout, and profit potential are all acceptable things to judge someone on. If set upon by three individuals wearing nice suits appearing professional and politely requesting a moment of his time (30 seconds or less to spout off who they are, their voting block, and that they would like to arrange a meeting), he may go for it. If set upon by two college kids and a showered hippy asking for a moment of his time with papers and a huge role of paper, he's just going to blow them off.
They should hire a lobbyist to at least teach them the etiquette of the position so they can use the system to their advantage in stead of parading about like a bunch of college kids on a crusade.
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Umm, RMS's smug demeanor and obsessive behavior about things like naming conventions piss off a lot of people. Not sure if you've noticed, but he's generally not well liked on Slashdot. If he's not even well-liked here among his own constituency, well, doesn't bode well for his role as a figurehead, regardless of what you may think of his ideals.