[Linux-aus] Re: linux-aus digest, Vol 1 #494 - 5 msgs

Ben Minton benminton at austarnet.com.au
Thu Feb 26 06:54:05 UTC 2004


Seem to have not understood the gist of this. Are you talking about the
SCO action or the lunacy underway courtesy of the EU Parliament re
software patents?

Ben 

>    1. Re: Promoting FOSS in Australia (Rusty Russell)

> From: Dan Shearer <dan at shearer.org>
> To: Rusty Russell <rusty at rustcorp.com.au>
> Cc: Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au>, Ben Minton <benminton at austarnet.com.au>, Linux Australia General <linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au>
> Subject: Re: [Linux-aus] Promoting FOSS in Australia
> Date: 25 Feb 2004 12:04:15 +1030
> 
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 10:58:50AM +1100, Rusty Russell wrote:
> > In message <20040224201559.GC12530 at cyber.com.au> you write:
> > > Stay clear of the 'political' sphere, at least publically, and concentrate
> > > on helping smooth out areas which prevent FOSS solutions being considered
> > > by government procurement people presently. Areas such as a lack of
> > > broadly understood risk assessment and FOSS 'product' quality assessment
> > > guidelines; lack of local FOSS solution providers' experience in selling
> > > into government; lack of 'product' marketing etc.
> > 
> > Just to clarify: WRT adoption, I completely agree.
> > 
> > However, political action is required where something comes up which
> > directly threatens Open Source development.
> 
> Current legal issues threaten creativity in Australia across the board.
> Parts of OSS might get shut down first, that's all. Australian media,
> closed source developers, inventors and even chemical companies should
> be very worried.
> 
> The only Australians in creative industries who don't need to be
> concerned are:
> 
> 	* all those that run multibillion dollar international companies
> 	  in areas such as software or media from Australia. Every
> 	  single one.
> 
> 	* those that are employed in Australia by multibillion dollar
> 	  international companies based overseas, and who are sure that
> 	  they will always be able to find a similar employer during their
> 	  career (for example, because multibillion dollar
> 	  international companies truly believe in supporting local
> 	  Australian employment.)
> 
> Much has been said about how the OSS community has been complacent,
> caught napping etc. But I'm not aware of the media, closed source
> software, database content producer communities or other targets of
> these IP provisions even caring at all.




More information about the linux-aus mailing list