Stop American Censorship — a campaign from Fight for the Future

Stop American Censorship — a campaign from Fight for the Future

Today, 18 January 2012, we are seeking to stop SOPA and PIPA now. These two bills, the first a US House, the second a US Senate, purport to stop piracy but they are such poorly drafted bills that they actually lay the groundwork for a regime of censorship that would, as virtually every major Internet organization has recognized, destroy the freedoms that have made the Internet and Web a vehicle for economic and cultural growth.

I have proposed to the Apache OpenOffice podling, where I intermittently contribute, to support the protest.

And I blacked out my other blog, www.luispo.com, in support.

I support the protest.

And for the remainder of the day, I ask you, too, to support the protest, if not by blacking out your site or your posts, then by looking at the bills and reading over the discussions. And then by doing what is really very effective: if you are a US citizen, contact your representative and express yourself. This is an election year; your voice counts.

And if you are not a US citizen, keep this in mind: The US is hardly exceptional and the laws that are in circulation and not yet enacted, also work to diminish freedom and weaken community and return us to a regime that didn't work and cannot work this century--but which can still make the oligarchs even richer, and at your expense.

Le logiciel libre propose un potentiel d'économie incroyable | Francis A-Trudel | Économie

Le logiciel libre propose un potentiel d'économie incroyable | Francis A-Trudel | Économie

See, this is not only interesting but important. And here's a message to Ben: Let's collaborate. Change can start now. It's not a political or cultural thing, it's a simple case of legacy and momentum. There are alternatives now and choices, and we are on the brink of transmigrating to the Cloud for informatics. So now is the perfect time to choose to make data open, source open, and to decide that in the interests of all, it's best to use open standards. The alternative, a life licensed into boxed paralysis, cannot work for all, and not even all the time, for some.

'German cities following Munich's open source example' | Joinup

'German cities following Munich's open source example' | Joinup

Suppose that several key cities in Germany, such as Hamburg, Berlin, Bonn, Frankfurt--others, too--join Munich in moving, at least in part, their government offices to open source and open standards. What effect would that have on the Foss and open-standards ecosystems? For starters, once every time a major group migrates, it makes it easier for others. Not only does one--ideally--learn about what to do and not do, but also each migration spawns an ecosystem composed of small(ish) companies whose business is helping and supporting the migration. And this further aids the growth of the community, which increasingly includes contributors very interested in sustaining their business, solving client needs, and in making their own work easier by working with--collaborating--others to resolve bugs, add enhancements, and so on.

This is how a market is made, modulo 21st century technologies. It's not too different from any other time. A new technology or commodity or other product finds demand, and the suppliers rejoice, as do all the business people in the middle and periphery. Jobs are created, wealth, too, and it's overall a generally good thing, provided that the community (or in the plural) so established is able to sustain itself and is not simply a useful but temporary outgrowth of a larger business, one very much susceptible to the vagaries of the market.

For instance, here in Ontario, it seems that the largest industrial/manufacturing ecosystem depended--or depends--upon the US automotive industry. Sure, Canadians also drive these vehicles. But, as with so many other things Canadian, it really comes down to what the US buys. So, when the Lesser Depression began in 2008, and continued--continues--and the US automotive companies, once so mighty, once even defining the nature of the American economy, once they were shaken to the point of collapse, Ontario's manufacturing economy was bushwhacked. Poor planning had not provided for a real alternative, meaning that jobs lost to cars gone were jobs gone, at least until the car companies revived enough to resume their ways across the border. The point: The ecosystem up here was big and strong but depended upon the market strength of companies far removed from it and its concerns. The community so formed up here was intensely vulnerable. The solution is to establish a base that removes that vulnerability. But most cities around the world do not have the luxury of doing that. Yet some manage. Berkeley, where I pretty much lived half my life, was ridiculed by its neighbours--San Francisco, for instance, but also the much smaller and somewhat odd Emeryville--for not just ignoring the dot.com businesses of the 90s but for actually disdaining them, and favouring, instead, more or less failed efforts at re-establishing a manufacturing base by developing--way ahead of its time--electrical vehicles, for instance, as well as other things that were meant to provided *lasting* and less vulnerable jobs. The idea was not some Marxist fantasy. It was rooted in the clear perception that the dotcom boom was a bust waiting to happen and that a better future lay in making real things that real people would want because they really solved real problems. Cue to the present: Modern Web technology does not depend upon the mystery of the connection between the eyeball and the wallet. It uses Web and other Internet technology to connect, the represent and to build, and is not an end in and of itself. It's not about eyeballs--though my fellow community managers don't always seem to get this--it's about making things that last, using tools, such as the lowly mobile phone, that are now actually ubiquitous.

City, Red Hat tout Raleigh as open-source leader - Technology - NewsObserver.com

City, Red Hat tout Raleigh as open-source leader - Technology - NewsObserver.com

Raleigh is by no means an insignificant city. So there are at least a couple of things of interest here, not least being the turn to, or at least the decline of a turn away from, open source. The other is that it's Red Hat that's moving this, it seems, and not any of the other big players in Raleigh and the associated Triangle. (The Triangle is one of the key intellectual and business centres of the US, and in some ways rivals Silicon Valley, but not quite: not enough ferment of new companies.)

I look forward to see how this plays out. For instance, will there be a public sector big-scale deployment of Foss? Or is this to be a deferred action, aka lip service.

App Shopper: CloudOn (Productivity)

App Shopper: CloudOn (Productivity)

Interesting--but when I tried to download it (it's free), the message, "not available for..." this or that country came up. Perhaps that's a sign of how popular it is? For my guess is that there are many who want what I want: an app for the iPad (or equiv Android) device allowing me to create and edit (or even just edit) ODF and (yes) OOXML files.

I will actually try to contact the makers of CloudOn, to see if they are interested in working on something related for ODF. Again, I'm sure there is a market there. It is one both for enterprises and similar environments, such as public sector offices and education institutions, and those who simply want to have a tablet and not a full computer and see the tablet as something more than a purely consumer object. Yes, they can use Apple's productivity apps--they are quite good, in fact, and operate nicely with Apple's own Cloud offerings. But that Procrustean hobble cuts out a huge market.