Karsten on Free Software

For a long time, I haven’t been able to write anything. There was a lot of grunt work to do in preparation for the GNU/Linuxtag, which will start on Wednesday in Karlsruhe, Germany. Between now and then, however, still lies the second part of WIPO’s intersessional intergovernmental meeting (that’ll be IIM/2 for the rest of this blog). I’m curious to see what has become of the processes that started in April and receded behind closed doors after that meeting was over.

Last week brought some great news: Markus Beckedahl from Berlin was awarded the title “Best Blog, International” for netzpolitik.org by Reporters sans Frontieres. Markus: Congratulations. Please keep on with your important work.

As all the world-saving will start only tomorrow, that leaves me today’s sunday for strolling through Geneva. Maybe I’ll even go swimming in the lake. The weather is so fine as to not really make me look forward to spending three days of my (more and more relative) youth in a big room with 200 guys in suits.

Notwithstanding, I’ll do the same thing I did in April: Keeping track of what’s going on in the negotiations, and summing it up for you. Don’t worry, this is not a work of pure altruism. I’ve decided to write my master’s thesis on “Free Software and Access to Knowledge”, and following this meeting will be an important part of the preparation process.

But now I’ve had enough of sitting inside typing. I’ll take my swimming trunks and move towards the lake. Let’s see what I will find there.