[Linux-aus] libre aus

[Paul Shirren]

On 2/05/12 12:19 PM, Brenda Aynsley wrote:
> 
> agree with janet in principle but this organisation seems to be more in 
> line with the aims of EFA in Australia than the constituents of Linux 
> Australia have been in the past.

I see no benefit to aligning with civil rights or political groups as an
organisation. We can each do that as individuals if we want and I think
it makes for a stronger and more diverse argument to Government if an
organisation like Linux Australia is arguing for or against a policy
based on the practical needs of free and open source technology users
rather than being lumped in with more ideological arguments that might
just happen to have the same aims.

I don't want to reinvent the FSF four freedoms but I think what we
really represent is the freedom to make, use, modify and share in a
technological world. Open hardware clearly fits in as much as open
source software to me. Perhaps even open content. I wouldn't like to see
the rubber band stretched much further.

I think it is hard to see how Internet filtering is of direct concern to
Linux Australia. It is a sort of fundamental right that underpins some
other things (not least democracy) and a broken Internet isn't something
most of us would want but it isn't really a core concern. Digital rights
management on the other hand is clearly totally abhorrent to open source
users as it denies us the ability to access media we have purchased and
anything that stops us reverse engineering and defeating
anti-circumvention is equally bad. But again I think we provide a
different and perhaps more real perspective on this than the EFA as we
can show clearly how this directly damages the interests of our members.