[dundee] RE: RMS

[William Cameron]

Just found a blog of a certain president of a certain linux society.. and found a list of the points RMS highlighted, and thought I'd comment a bit, I'll not keep you long, just thought I'd put some feedback into it, see if anyone agrees or disagrees.
RMS Raised the following issues:
* Digital restrictions management.  Conspiracies of businesses to restrict the technology available to the public should be an serious offense leading to imprisonment.I agree, it is slightly unfair to restrict a consumers use of material which they themselves do not own, by placing DRM on the content, the sheer copyright should be sufficient for the content owner/maker to maintain.  If a breach of that copyright is made it is then an issue of copyright breach rather than tangling this with a breach of DRM 'hacking' to play an iPod format file on an MP3 player! (in the sense of music files), or why, when a consumer has purchased a DVD, shoudl they be forced to watch it on a sony DVD player for example, rather than on their PC, which may be a primary multimedia center in their household.

* Unjust laws such as the EUCD, and its implementations which are even worse than the EUCD itself.
Not entirely sure what the EUCD is getting at here, as I'm not much of one for reading these things.. but it has something to do with the use of measures on hardware devices to limit or restrict media, and also highlights issues with the transmission of media over the internet.  I have memories of reading over what EUCD was trying to accomplish at the time arron first circled this email, and I remember disagreeing with it, but for the life of me can't remember where the article was on the internet.
* Software patents.These are wrong.  Now it has just become silly, a patent was originally intended to prevent people from capatilizing on an idea which someone else had thought of, before they did.   now they are ways of saying I have a patent on this, and no one can do it this way, go think again..  where's the room for competition and improvement.  similar to the open source community people utilizing similar ideas and expanding on what others have thought about and started to put into practise, software patents by companies such as microsoft are just rediculas.

* Hardware with secret specifications.Is this like built in features that you aren't made aware of at the time of purchase? so if my fridge suddenly started appearing on someones bluetooth scanner in the parking lot, i should be worried!  If it is; then i think its wrong, its like spyware in a sence, selling a product that says it does something but does something else.  i buy a fridge with a bluetooth rootkit wrapped into it, so the guy across the road can see whats in my fridge from his mobile phone.. thats kinda scary..

* Bundling of non-free operating systems with computers by stores.I think this  a good idea.  PC's comign with Windows installed on them already is a sense of a monopoly.  The choice should be there for the consumer.  When I was looking for a laptop not too long ago, I asked the lady in PCWorld if I could get a discount because I didin't want Windows preinstalled, "I'm just going to format it and put Linux on it" I says, she replied, that there was nothing she could do, I'd have to phone Microsoft and tell them I disagree with their Licence Agreement and that I would like a refund!  REDICULAS!! Where is consumer choice?  If I want a TV, there are plenty of makes and models there, you don't see all the sony ones out front, and all the bush and daewoo ones hidden in the back for customers to come in and say "I don't want a sony tv", there all mixed in amongst each other, like so should windows and flavors of linux.  If its looks the computer shops are worried about, there's plenty of jazzy distro's out there!

* Use of non-free formats for communication with the public by governments and by businesses.I additionally agree with this, many organizations are using restricted and specific formats to stream their content, I think it was CNN or SkyNews web page I was on the other day, and I couldn't stream their video feeds for stories... I didn't have Windows Media Player installed!!  I was running Ubuntu, and had to reboot into windows to watch them.. i wasn't amused, its an inconvience if it isn't illegal.

* Schools should not teach non-free software -- it is unethical.unethical! try telling that to the university! The ECDL qualification is a little bi-ast here too, it teaches mainly microsoft material, i know there is an open source equivelant online somewhere, but if i was to go anywhere in dundee and tell them i wanted to give them my hard earned cash and want them to teach me and attain an ECDL qualification, i GUARANTEE its windows based!!!  I wonder if any actually know about the open source alternative.. or if any employers differentiate..  I've spoke to many people, even some who dual boot linux and windows, who continually prefer to use windows over linux, simply because thats what they've been taught at school, or thats whats compatible with work/college.  It's time there was a choice.  One laptop per child programme is not just a case of helping get technology into the 3rd world, I bet in 15/20 years when those kids are all grown up looking for jobs, they'll be some of the best linux users in teh world, born and bred exploring the linux shell.. it is the way forward.Anyway, enough of my babble.. Catch ya's later.Cheers,William
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