Tonnerre Lombard

The petition against censorship which was filed to the German parliament from April 24th, 2009 has finally passed the 100’000 signers. On June 4th, 12 days before the end of the petition, 110’298 people have signed it.

The powers that be however decided to ignore the petition so far. Apart from a lapsus of the German minister of economy, von Gutenberg, who declared that everybody who was against censorship is a pedophile, none of the politicians of the social democrats (SPD) or the christian union (CDU), the governing parties in Germany, has mentioned the petition in any way. Family minister Ursula von der Leyen, who is currently campaining for her reelection, even removed the time for questions from her campaign events.

Since the petition has passed the necessary limit of 50’000 signers, the petition committee of the German parliament will at least have to consider it. The result of this will be very interesting.

I would like to invite all people who have an interest in political activism for the benefits of Open Source and Free Software as well as aiming at a free and open information infrastructure (open standards, etc.) to the second Swiss FOSS compatible lobbyist meeting in Berne, in the conference room in the railway station. The meeting will take place on

Monday, November 5th, 2007 18:00 (that is 6pm)

in the conference rooms inside the railway station of Bern, Switzerland.

The place is easily reached by taking the train to Berne and leaving at the central station. If you are planning to go there by car, there is a parking lot (surveilled) right above the railway station (Universität Langgasse).

If you have comments or don’t know how to find this place, call me under TL1733-RIPE or +41.793790549.

Agenda

1. Salutation
2. Review of the situation since the first meeting
3. Analysis of failed projects
4. Introduction of working groups and creating member lists (see next headline)
5. Working group agenda discussion
6. Outlook on likely items for the year 2008
7. Maybe drop by at the Altes Tramdepot or something similar to have a drink

Proposed woking groups

The following is a list of working groups which are deemed helpful for the organization of the upcoming campaigns:

Currently debated items

• Office OpenXML standardization
• Copyright Revision (cleanup work)
• Federal Surveillance (trojan etc.)

Generic Working Groups

• Open Standards
• Amendments
• Lobbying
• Intelligence
• Press
• IT (Yes, there are lots of things to do in this area too)