Tonnerre Lombard
FFII’s coordinator for Switzerland
German Police says Good Bye to Microsoft Products
November 22nd, 2007
After the German Bundesrechnungshof has released a paper critizising the extensive and expensive use of Windows in public services, the German Police Trade Union has demanded that the failed police software project POLIKS shall be discontinued and all installations of the Windows operating system of Microsoft be replaced with Linux.
Issues with the new system had been raised for a long time already. It takes half an hour and longer to record a single case, which had been done within a couple of minutes using the paper based approach. This half hour is of course time that the person reporting the incident will have to wait. Also, the system has experienced 50 hours of downtime for the year, which is a rather low availability rate as opposed to services normally offered by Open Source systems.
The Police Union representatives suggest that the saved license fees could be used for the christmas gratifications for the police officers.
John Tehranian: No life without IPR infringement
November 22nd, 2007
John Tehranian has released a paper stating that life without IPR infringements is not possible. Tehranian is describing the average day of an imaginary, but average person, all with respect to intellectual property rights infringements. The liabilities for such an average day would already amount to several million Dollars.
Google invites to “OSS Jam” lightning talks in Zurich
November 16th, 2007
The web service platform provider Google invited to an Open Source Software lecture event called Open Source Jam in Zurich. On that event, participants are invited to present their projects in 5 minutes, trying to find other programmers who are willing to participate in it.
The event is also supposed to feature a “hack center” where participants can code together and socialize. And as the main feature, pizza and beer are provided. The date is not fixed yet though, and participants are invited to subscribe to a common organization mailing list.
The nomenclature debate
It is also to be noted that the event has been announced as an Open Source Event, which has already caused Free Software propagators to abstain from participation in an event. It is clear that the event is unluckily announced already, and it is going to be interesting how it is going to be accepted in the Free Software camp.
Data Retention in Germany adopted
November 15th, 2007
It has been a couple of days already, but on November 9th, around noon (finally not in a midnight session!), the German Parliament has adopted the law on data retention (VDS: Vorratsdatenspeicherung) with a lower limit of 6 monthes of retention. This legislation requires all connection metadata to be saved for 6 monthes before they may get deleted.
During the vote, which was held around noon, the parliament was an astonishingly empty place. This legislation, which can serve to turn Germany into a surveillance state, did not even raise enough interest among the parliamentarians to cause a significant majority of them to vote on the issue, which is a rather sad thing.
According to the German federal police, there is «no alternative» to the data retention policy. The same argument could be applied to death row, so it is utterly worthless as an argument.
I invite everyone who has talked to his local parliamentarian in Germany to have a word with him about why he did not appear in Parliament or why he voted in favor of the proposal (if so): have a look at the voting list for the German data retention law.
Not all is lost
But there is still a way to influence the legislation even after it has been passed. The Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung has a press release on their preparation of legal action against the law. According to the Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung, the legislation is in disagreement with the German constitution and thus cannot be adopted as it has been presented right now.
And the Arbeitskreis Datenspeicherung is not alone with this opinion: Parliamentarians of the Socialist Party (SPD) mentioned that they also don’t think the law is compatible with the constitution, but expressed that the Constitutional Court would take care of it.
Invitation to the 2nd Swiss FOSS compatible lobbyists meeting in Berne
November 1st, 2007
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
- Salutation
- Review of the situation since the first meeting
- Analysis of failed projects
- Introduction of working groups and creating member lists (see next headline)
- Working group agenda discussion
- Outlook on likely items for the year 2008
- 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)
Patents threaten 802.11n standard
October 3rd, 2007
According to an article on Computable.nl, the new 802.11n standard is threatened right after it was released – by patents. This is a rough translation:
Even though pre 802.11n products are already on the market, the coming standard is in danger. While suppliers already offer wireless equipment based on a draft of the 802.11n standard, this next
generation of Wi-Fi technology could eventually fail. The cause? Patents.
The standard that has already been under development for a long time is in danger. The long expected and promising 802.11n could eventually fail to come into existence. This despite the fact that nearly all suppliers of network equipment have already started offering 802.11n products. These Wi-Fi products are based on a first version of the coming standard.
As it turns out now an Australian organisation, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) has patents on 802.11n. The patent involved refer to technology for backward compatibility with the present Wi-Fi-standards 802.11g and 802.11a.
CSIRO refuses however to refrain from legal claims. The latter is a normal condition in the development of a standard by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). The 802.11n working party of the IEEE is now having an emergency meeting.
CSIRO is not willing, despite earlier requests of the IEEE, to submit a Letter of Assurance in which it promises not to start legal procedures against parties ratifying the coming standard. Such a declaration is a requisite and for this reason the standards organisation cannot ratify 802.11n now. Furthermore present suppliers of 802.11n draft equipment would also commit an infringement of the law.
Big crash in the financial market in 2008 due to patents?
October 3rd, 2007
Some experts are expecting a major financial crash in the world due to a breakdown of three main pillars of the world financial system: consumer debts, mortgages, and patents.
According to an article by Pieter Hintjens (President of FFII), a lot of banks have given out moneys for patent portfolios based on the assumption that there is a value associated with these patents. These values however are not based on any facts but on pure marketing: something that could be done with the patent. Experts have never liked this idea, which is also the reason why we don’t have the often-called-for patent insurance yet: because insurance agencies rejected patents as uninsurable.
Nevertheless, banks tended and still tend to give out their money freely to companies and other entities that have nothing else to offer as collateral than a patent portfolio. However, starting from January 1st, 2008, banks have to report their risks imposed by intangibles due to the new Basel II regulations which come into force. At this point, fear coming up is to be expected, and the crisis of the financial market, which is already fueled by the burst of the housing bubble, is going to rise even further.
The Internet without Net Neutrality
October 1st, 2007
Fredy Künzler has found a nice illustration of why Net Neutrality is such an important aspect. This drawing shows what network access would be like if the marketing departments had the final word.
The search engine providers express their opinions on Censorship
October 1st, 2007
Questioned about privacy laws and censorship, search engine providers can indeed give out weird messages. This became clear after an inquiry to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo about their search politics relating to China. All of these search engine providers have separate search engines for display and use in China which respect the local legal framework. However, this framework demands both censorship and reports on who searched what. People searching for keywords such as «democracy» are to be turned in by the search engine provider.
Inquired about China, Google hands out a lenghty document typed up personally which explains that business pressure demands Google to operate in China. However, Google would not be allowed in China unless they implement the legal framework. The situation is called unsatisfactory, and a solution is said to be seeked but has to take place on an international, political level.
Also, Google says that the request to turn in people searching for certain keywords is not binding, and thus Google does not implement it.
Yahoo
Yahoo chose not to respond at all to inquiries related to China.
Microsoft
Questioned about China, Microsoft returned a prepared letter endorsing censorship as a perfect tool to keeping undesirable content away from the users. According to Microsoft, one should also look at the positive side of censorship. However, just like Google, Microsoft does not turn in users based on search requests.
Summary
It appears that Google is the only company which really has some kind of sense of corporate responsibility on the subject of censorship. It is however a fact that Google still plays with the dragons in this game, and hopefully Google will participate in any effort to clear up this issue in the future. The most unacceptable answer was probably that of Microsoft. Censorship is not acceptable under any circumstances, especially since it is not appropriate for any enterprise to decide on what a customer is willing to look at or not, for whatever reasons.