August 2013 - Free-software-melb - lists.softwarefreedom.com.au

Debate event: “Copyright Is Dead, Long Live The Pirates”
by Ben Finney 23 Sep '13

23 Sep '13

Howdy all, The Wheeler Centre is organising an IQ² Debate with a topic related to free culture, that of copyright and the misnomer “piracy” for copyright infringement. The digital revolution is counter-intuitive to copyright. Technological change is moving too fast for adequate laws to be implemented – and for affected industries to keep pace. With such open access to information these days, how do we know where one person’s work ends and another begins? Is the very idea of intellectual property becoming a nonsense – or is it too important to give up on, for the continuing functioning of the arts and the sciences? And – the million-dollar question – how can we ensure creativity continues to pay? Our speakers will consider the obstacles and opportunities ahead. <URL:http://wheelercentre.com/events/event/copyright-is-dead-long-live-the-p…> -- \ “He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his | `\ enemy from oppression.” —Thomas Paine | _o__) | Ben Finney

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Keysigning party
by Ben Finney 04 Sep '13

04 Sep '13

Howdy all, We have been discussing the idea of regular GPG keysigning parties for our group. A keysigning party is an opportunity to efficiently use a gathering of people to perform the necessary steps in verifying the identity of GPG key holders <URL:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party>. There is a good site <URL:http://keysigning.org/> which is a repository of information on what a keysigning party is and, importantly, what people need to know in order to prepare and participate. I think we will use some middle ground between the “Sassaman” <URL:http://keysigning.org/methods/sassaman-efficient> and “Ad hoc” <URL:http://keysigning.org/methods/adhoc>>. Specifically, I think the party will be small enough to use Ad hoc, but the central point of contact to co-ordinate the participating keys will be helpful. Adam Bolte has offered to give more information and co-ordinate, but I'm happy to answer questions here too. -- \ “By instructing students how to learn, unlearn, and relearn, a | `\ powerful new dimension can be added to education.” —Alvin | _o__) Toffler, _Future Shock_, 1970 | Ben Finney

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[Fwd: [SFD-announce] SFD 2013 registration is now ON!]
by Lev Lafayette 03 Sep '13

03 Sep '13

Hi Freedom-lovers, Is the Melbourne Free Software Group interesting in taking up the role of organising Software Freedom Day this year? LUV has done it a few years in succession now, but it's really something that should be in the domain of Melbourne FS. All the best, Lev ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: [SFD-announce] SFD 2013 registration is now ON! From: "Frederic Muller - DFF" <fred(a)digitalfreedomfoundation.org> Date: Sun, June 16, 2013 4:21 pm To: "SFD announcements" <sfd-announce(a)sf-day.org> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear all, It is with a great pleasure that we are opening registration for SFD 2013. The wiki has been prepared with the current localized languages available and some of the translations for the Frontpage still need to be updated. We are still finishing some of the design including the countdown which will start working 99 days before the event. As usual we are available for support through email on sfd-discuss or on IRC (#SFD on freenode). The deadline for registered teams to get the free goodies is July 21st which should give us enough time to ship everything everywhere. Simply create your team page under http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2013 (/country/city/team for most) and complete the form on http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/cgi-bin/register.py. All information and links are of course available from the SFD website. As usual artworks are available under http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/Artwork and CC-BY licensed. Feel free to use, enhanced and eventually localize them. I want to particularly thank our sponsors who are making this possible, namely Canonical, Google, and Linode for the time being. Should your organization be interested to sponsor DFF to be able to send more goodies please get in touch with us. Note that there is a deadline to be listed on the magazine ads we run with our media sponsors, Linux Magazine, Ubuntu user, Admin, Smart developer and Linux Journal, which is around mid July or early August. We will be going through various changes in terms of blog location and ways to hear about us, the main reason being that we have moved our non-profit to Hong Kong and the requirements are a bit different than in the US. Besides we are a lot of projects going on and those require some changes. So let's get started and happy SFD preparations! The Digital Freedom Foundation Board ps: do check the SFD 2011 winners for inspiration and thanks again to Lemote and FSF for the prizes. http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/en/competition/winners-2011 [1]: http://mail.sf-day.org/lists/listinfo/sfd-discuss [2]: http://planet.softwarefreedomday.org (language specific planets available through the language switcher) _______________________________________________ SFD-announce mailing list SFD-announce(a)sf-day.org http://mail.sf-day.org/lists/listinfo/sfd-announce -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), MBA, GCertPM mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

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WikiLeaks Party members quit over problems of integrity
by Ben Finney 22 Aug '13

22 Aug '13

Howdy all, Seven people have quit working for the WikiLeaks Party this week: A total of seven party members and volunteers have now quit, including four delegates of the national council - the party's governing body. <URL:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-22/assange-blames-party-teething-problems/4904366?section=australianetworknews> We had a brief discussion of the Australian WikiLeaks Party at our last FSM meeting, when we asked the Pirate Party members what they saw as differences between the two parties. One of the differences the Pirate Party members pointed to first was that theirs is run openly and democratically, while WikiLeaks Party appears to run hierarchically and behind closed doors. Leslie Cannold and Daniel Mathews, two of the higer-profile members to quit the WikiLeaks party, both cited failures of principle and integrity within the part leadership as reasons for resigning. Cannold's published resignation letter contrasts the espoused values of transparency and accountability, versus the party's practice of members undermining decisions made legitimately by its governing body. -- \ “If we have to give up either religion or education, we should | `\ give up education.” —William Jennings Bryan, 1923-01 | _o__) | Ben Finney

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Free software discussion group this Thursday 15 August
by Adam Bolte 13 Aug '13

13 Aug '13

Hi everyone, The time of our next monthly meet-up is approaching. Take a look at what we've got lined up: * Ben McGinnes of Pirate Party Australia Ben will be discussing the Pirate Party's take on copyright, patents and privacy. This had to be postponed by a month due to a last minute emergency, but it will be on this Thursday to be sure! * Intro to GnuPG, followed by keysigning The revelations of the PRISM program have made everyone rethink what they are exposing online, and GnuPG is perhaps one of the best tools to help protect yourself. We will walk you though the basics of how it works, and how to get started. Additionally, we will be holding Free Software Melbourne's first ever official keysigning event, helping you put that GPG knowledge to immediate use! If this interests you, don't forget to bring along sufficient proof of ID. Ideally 2 forms of government issued photo ID should be used. If you are already a GnuPG user and are interested in participating in the keysigning, it would be helpful if you could print out up to 20 small strips of paper with the output of the following command on each: gpg --fingerprint KeyID Also note on the strip if you want your signed key returned to you or published directly to a public keyserver. More details on all of this is here: http://keysigning.org/methods/adhoc * Followed by dinner at a nearby restaurant We haven't decided on a place for dinner yet, but we're always open to suggestions. Don't forget to mark the event on your calendar - Date: Thursday 15 August Time: 6-9pm Location: VPAC Head Office Training Room Level 1, Building 91, 110 Victoria Street A map is on the website: http://www.freesoftware.asn.au/melb/ Hope to see you there! Cheers, Adam

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FOSS
by Sven＠GMX 09 Aug '13

09 Aug '13

A useful page I just came across while searching for a stock management application: http://freeopensourcesoftware.org/index.php?title=Main_Page -- Sven

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Software freedom discussion on Byte Into It, 2013-07-24
by Ben Finney 06 Aug '13

06 Aug '13

Howdy all, On 3RRR's Byte Into It show for Wednesday 2013-07-24, we discussed several topics of interest for software freedom. * Attorney-General's Department misled Parliament on data retention legislation. * CyanogenMod to include SELinux for secure permissions control. * Wine 1.6 adds native MacOS X support, window transparency, and Mono support. * Magic Lantern facilitates HDR photography by supplementing the camera's operating system. * Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen from Flinders University expounded on the potential of serval mesh technology, and the Speak Freely project. You can get the episode online at <URL:http://rrrfm.libsyn.com/byte-into-it-26-june-2013>. -- \ “It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” | `\ —David Hume | _o__) | Ben Finney

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