Re: [ox] what I meant to say...
- From: LutzH <me privacy.net>
- Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 08:01:58 +0200
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Hi Graham,
On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 07:41:16PM -0400, graham belegost.mit.edu wrote:
Secondly the main goal of the FSF is freedom. Personally there are
other aspects of free software I think good: for example, it is good
when free software is developed by groups, not only individuals, and
good when the development is international and not limited to one
country. This doesn't increase the freedom of the software, but for me
it increases its 'Oekonux-ness'.
Exactly. And that's the point where the FSF and the upcoming FSF Europe
settle for to little. It's my understanding that for them it's enough
that information wants to be free, so the set it free. Unarguable by
ways of the GNU GPL they achieved a major breakthrough towards this goal
which Oekonux builds upon.
Actually I don't see any kind of 'community' around the FSF which works
the way described by you above.
[discuss specific topics on the list and possibly reach a consesus]
1. What to do in areas where free software is not yet available (as
the music example; also some of electronics) - what is the priority?
I think priority has the topic people begin to work on. We can't and
shouldn't tell anybody to work on a topic unless we work on it
ourselves. In my understanding Oekonux is not about following some plan
to reach some far away goal (although I don't implie you said that) but
about doing stuff in a conciues, self gouverned way.
2. Ways to deal with patents in areas where patents are already
established (unlike software)
This sounds like some heavy stuff from the legal department :-) Perhaps
it's possible to find some way to use exsiting laws to work against
their intented meaning, like the GNU GPL does for software licenses, but
this probably won't be easy.
3. Accepting money/help from commercial organisations with their own
agenda (or political groups with their own agenda...) - what are the
dangers?
I'm not sure if you followed the discussion on http://www.heise.de/
following the article about the conference. One major line of 'thought'
goes like this: The conference was supported by the
Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (RLS) which is funded (?) by the PDS aka SED in
the good ol' days of the DDR which are supporters of stalinism -->
Oekonux is stalinistic bullshit.
Altghough I can live with this kind of 'critique' it's very difficult to
get the message across that the people on Oekonux have some thoughts of
them own and are not only puppets on the strings of some stalinistic
dictator. So teaming up with other political groups always contains the
danger that people outside pick up _one_ aspect they find in this
collaboration which suits the best and bash away.
4. What elements of the gpl can be adopted for non software fields?
The idea to use existing law to work against the intended meaning of
this law. This might be more difficult in other fields than software.
5. How to work across national/cultural boundaries more effectively?
I consider this list and your presence on it a good start :-)
6. How to link with the needs of developing countries (or, maybe, the
other way round...)
Phew, that's difficult! Being based on the internet as the medium of
discussion and organization it'll be a major difficulty to reach people
in less 'developed' countries.
B. The second point isn't a proposal for Oekonux-the-group, but maybe
for individuals in the group.
There are many areas with obvious parallels and connections with free
software.
[list of possilbe topics]
The potential list is endless; it just depends on peoples
backgrounds/interests.
If any is interested in developing such sites, I'm hoping to develop
the Open Collector site code into something more general purpose. At
the moment it's a very boring perl/php/mysql mix; I'd like to replace
that with an XML-based format allowing easy interchange of data
between related sites (related topics or same topic,different
language). Unlike current web-site code I know of (eg slashcode,
scoop) which mainly give appearance/functionality, with perhaps rdf
added as an afterthought, I'd like to make the data (text/news
articles/reviews/links/designs/ etc) central, so sites using it could
have completely different functionality or appearance. Would anyone be
interested in collaborating on this?
Now that's some interesting idea! I'd like to work on a
tool/infrastructure like that although the point 'make the data central'
should perhaps be discussed a little bit :-)
The catch is, you'd need to set up a website dealing with a new area
;-)
Really? Since when are hackers good in creating content (and vice versa
:-)
all the best
Graham
Regards
Lutz
- --
LutzH <me privacy.net>
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