Take Part In The Internet Commons Congress, Mar. 24-25 19
"This means conveying some 'technical' facts about the boot process for home computers, and also some 'technical' facts about copyright law in the United States of America, and much more.
In the next few days, descriptions of various projects we need help with will go up on the ICC web sites. Right now, we need places for people to stay near the ICC site, which is in Shady Grove, Maryland. We also need at least one person who can show us a free operating system running on the Xbox, and we'd like to see a St. Ignucious-certifiable OS running on Apple hardware. We need some adepts to help with the gavel-to-gavel audio coverage. We are going to need folks to write to their Representatives and Senators, and more, visit with them and talk with them. If you want to help, write to jays@panix.com, and include the string 'ICC Volunteer' in the subject line." Here's NYFU's page on the gathering.
Are we confusing politics and commerce? (Score:5, Interesting)
Looking at this Call to General Assembly, I find myself pondering exactly what NYFU is trying to be. Is it based upon a political view of overreaching and naive governmental officials, and if so, is this limited to Internet issues? Are they espousing a belief in the technical superiority of open source over closed source software and, if so, what relevance is the "Bio-Medical Cartel" and similar hyperbolic language? Are they objecting to the substance of SCO's IP claims, with some broader conspiracy theory involving Microsoft? If their answer is "all of the above," I think they are being counterproductive. Each of these views is certainly worth discussing, but they seem to have little relationship among them beyond the fact that some technology professionals hold them as true.
For myself, as an attorney and law professor [tourolaw.edu] interested in issues of technology rights and risks, I am turned off by the exaggeration and mix of issues presented in this Call. I also believe that NYFU is doing both itself and its cause(s) a profound disservice by presenting its ideas as a conspiratorialist rant filled with references to "tyrannical governments", "barratry and red-baiting" and cartels and oligopolies.
What do the rest of you think? {Professor Jonathan}