politics

-> written in reply to Bogus Copyright Claim Silences Yet Another Larry Lessig YouTube Presentation on techdirt.

This shows painfully how the powers are currently distributed.

<5% of the people have >90% of the resources, so they have more influence on the media which then influences which people are elected into positions of power, and then these elected pass laws which shift more power towards the <5%.

-> A comment on The Importance of Managing Your Online Reputation.

I read your article, and I found the points you make very interesting, though not only in a positive way.

You tackle the “we have a network others can see” from the active side: “How can I make sure my employer likes what he sees?”.

in reply to You do know you can't rely on Gmail, right?

You're citing some of the reasons why I dislike SaaS, but there's one more:

Whenever I use a SaaS application, I trust someone whom I really can't reach, and I trust him without being able to exert any kind of control.

A reply to a comment on slashdot named Can we fight the trend?:

There was a trend to having only proprietary software (by former free software being enslaved in the job contracts its creators took) and to having the hacker community die out.

That trend was reversed by GNU with the invention of the GPL and the GNU System.

And today millions of people use free software and we have organizations like the EFF and FSF who work for a free software society.

a comment to: Embattled ACTA Negotiations Next Week In Geneva; US Sees Signing This Year:

I didn't yet manage to get really safe information on what ACTA actually does (that's a marker for 'this is dangerous' in itself), but what I see on wikileaks sounds horrible:

-> a comment to BT to cut off file sharers from TechWatch.

I can read this article in two ways:
1) They took part in sharing/downloading that music file
2) They just had a bittorrent or Gnutella program running.

1 is unlikely, because not every fourth internet user will have downloaded that song.

And if 2 is the case, BT should be sued to its knees.

Having a Gnutella program is not illegal, and blocking access to Gnutella means vastly reduced service.

Written at: http://musicmanager.last.fm/contact/

Hi,

I licensed all my works under free and open licenses which permit any kind of commercial copying and reuse, but which don't permit taking away rights from the listeners.

I'd like to upload the files to last.fm, but I can only do so, if I can be sure, that no additional restrictions will be placed on the users (no DRM). Else I would violate the license agreement.

These are the terms under which I work together with other artists, so there's no way around that.

- Free Software version of "Finity's End"; original: {lyrics: CJ Cherryh, music: Leslie Fish}.
- filked by Draketo aka Arne Babenhauserheide (draketo.de) (capo 3)

- please check the dedicated site: http://infinite-hands.draketo.de -

Answer to a thread in the Gnutella-Forums.

I wouldn't begin bashing LW. They are a company, and you don't trust companies. Not because they are evil, but because they have to think of money first and foremost, else they go down and other come up front, who do. At least as long as people still buy the cheapest products, regardless of ethics.

I hold them in very high esteem for GPL-ling LimeWire and for standing up against the lawsuit.

Dear Steve Jobs,

I once left Apple after a Life of using Macs because you included the TPM chip in the Intel Macs, and I’ve been an active opponent to Apple ever since, because DRM and Trusted Computing aka Treacherous Computing go against everything I believe right in informatics and you had just made Apple the spearhead of DRM.

I’m not likely return as user (I’ve grown too fond of KDE for that), but I am likely to return as supporter, if you decide to give back the rights of your users to manage their own computers freely.