El Software y el conocimiento debe ser Libre
Posts tagged FSF
FSF – Holding Nintendo Accountable
Jul 3rd
Over a period of 10 days, 138 people from twenty different countries made donations of $10 or more in order to send Nintendo’s President and COO, Reggie Fils-Aime, a total of 220 bricks.
Earlier this month, our volunteers assembled the cardboard bricks and we wrapped each one of them and attached our signed letter calling for dropping DRM and changing the terms of service.
Over a period of 10 days, 138 people from twenty different countries made donations of $10 or more in order to send Nintendo’s President and COO, Reggie Fils-Aime, a total of 220 bricks.
Last week, volunteers for Defective By Design assembled the cardboard bricks (and had some fun doing so!). Today we are individually wrapping each brick, attaching our signed letters, so we can ship them out over the next few weeks to the Nintendo of America headquarters. At the end of our letter, we have issued the following demands:
- Drop DRM from the Nintendo 3DS and all future Nintendo products.
- Change your terms of service. Tracking a user’s activity; claiming a copyright license on a user’s data and her creative works; and bricking a user’s device if she chooses to modify or use it in an “unapproved” way, are intrusive and completely unacceptable, to say the least.
- Make a formal statement apologizing to your customers and responding to these requests.
Those of us who have sent a letter expect a response from Mr. Fils-Aime. But, we are not the only ones awaiting a response.
Our collective outcry over the digital and legal restrictions imposed by Nintendo has spread widely. Over the past two weeks, the bricks have brought much media attention to bear on the dangers of the Nintendo 3DS. Major gaming blogs and community forums; widely read sites such as PCWorld, BoingBoing and TorrentFreak; and mainstream publications such as Metro UK and the New York Times, are all looking for answers. So far Nintendo has only issued cryptic and troubling responses from unnamed spokespeople. All of these people &mdash all of us — deserve better from Nintendo and their COO and President Reggie Fils-Aime.
In our ongoing research, we came across this additional tidbit to share with you. Nintendo is actually trying to sell its control over users as a feature. On one of their promotional pages, they write, “The Activity Log tracks both your game play activity, noting which games you’ve played and how long you’ve played them, as well as your physical activity, counting every step you take while carrying your Nintendo 3DS.” The choice Nintendo leaves users with such “features” is all-or-nothing — you either allow them to track and record your every move, or you turn off the wireless entirely. While companies such as Apple and Google were recently forced to testify before the US Congress to explain having done similar (to the ire of their users), Nintendo hopes to fly under the radar, playing off the 3DS as just a “gaming device.” But we know you’re not fooled — help us make sure others aren’t either.
FSF – Introducing the Compliance Lab’s summer intern
Jul 3rd
We recently welcomed William Theaker at FSF as our summer’s licensing intern. In a blog post, he wrote about what brought him to free software, and the goals for his internship.
William Theaker recently started working at the FSF as this summer’s licensing intern. In this post, he writes about what brought him to free software, and the goals for his internship.
Hi! My name is William Theaker; I’m a college student from Connecticut interested in free software and copyright law. This summer I will be interning with the FSF; I will be working on various free software licensing issues by answering questions about licensing, investigating possible GPL violations, and working on my biggest project this summer, organizing the drafting archives for the GPLv3. My first interaction with free software was when I started using “Linux” in 2003, though I was unaware of the actual origins of the software in my computer. What I referred to as “Linux” is, in fact, GNU/Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system, made useful by the GNU core libraries, shell utilities, and vital system components comprising a full operating system as defined by POSIX.
Despite my early misunderstanding of free software, as I began to learn more I found myself extremely impressed by the clever logic and the democratic values on which the community was founded. When Richard Stallman launched the free software movement in the 1980s, he also wrote what would become the GNU General Public License (GPL), which uses copyright in a novel way to ensure that the freedoms of users are retained when they use and distribute the software. The GPL’s strong emphasis on copyleft—the assurance that free software cannot be published under a proprietary license—caused it to become the world’s most popular free software license. By using copyright law in a novel way, the GPL ensures that the freedoms of end users are retained during distribution. Before the 2005 announcement of the first draft of the GPLv3, the GPL had remained unchanged for over 15 years. The creation of a new license was one of the most exciting times in the free software world, underscoring the level of community involvement that sustains the free software movement.
GPLv3 and its drafting process were innovative in many ways. It marked the first time a copyright license was created with extensive input from the public, as well as the first time a free software license worked to address “tivoization”—limiting devices that run free software from running user modifications. Developers, lawyers, and free software advocates dedicated thousands of hours to editing and discussing the GPL, bringing to light issues that were not addressed in previous versions. Thanks to the hard work of these tireless volunteers, flaws in the drafts were identified and addressed, strengthening the ability for the GPL to promote freedom while still remaining flexible to the introduction of new technologies and distribution methods such as BitTorrent. GPLv3 emerged from this process with robust measures to support and protect free software from threats such as software patents.
One of the best aspects of the free software movement is the fact that anyone can join to help promote software freedom, and the GPLv3 drafting process allowed people who don’t usually write code to contribute to crafting a document that will define the free software movement for years to come. While the GPLv3 drafting process was a fascinating time for free software, thanks to the movement’s decentralized nature it was not the only opportunity to get involved. Anyone has the ability to help the cause of software freedom, whether by designing new artwork for free software projects, developing code, providing support or documentation, or donating to a free software project that they find important.
Many documents about GPLv3 came out of the drafting process, including the thousands of comments on the drafts of the various licenses. These documents provide a wealth of information that has the potential to be useful to software projects looking to modify their licenses, legal scholars interested in copyleft, cultural anthropologists, and free software advocates. Unfortunately they have not been organized into a centralized repository, which is my project for the summer. I’ve already completed a manifest of all the documents and materials involved in the drafting process, and will be working to produce a Web-facing archive that includes all of the comments and discussions on the GPLv3 drafts. I look forward to continuing my work on this project and can’t wait to delve into the archives this summer.
If you have ideas for this project, you can reach me via our licensing address at licensing@fsf.org.
FSF – Are you up to the Tor challenge?
Jul 2nd
In March at the LibrePlanet 2011 conference, we presented the 2010 Award for Projects of Social Benefit to the Tor Project for enabling millions of people to experience freedom of access and expression on the Internet while keeping them in control of their privacy and anonymity.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is encouraging people to run more Tor nodes to help keep up with the increasing number of people who rely on Tor. The FSF is already running a Tor node and we hope some of you reading this will take the challenge too.
Help anonymous expression online for people around the world.
You may remember that back in March at the LibrePlanet 2011 conference, we presented the 2010 Award for Projects of Social Benefit to the Tor Project — by using free software, Tor has enabled roughly 36 million people around the world to experience freedom of access and expression on the Internet while keeping them in control of their privacy and anonymity.
Tor is a system intended to enable online anonymity. Anyone can use the Tor software to route their Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers in order to conceal their location or usage from someone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis. As we’ve seen in recent months, entire countries can have their internet access switched off or heavily restricted and the Tor network has proved pivotal in dissident movements in places like Libya, Iran and Egypt.
In acknowledgment of the tremendous importance in using free software to secure free, anonymous expression for people around the world, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is encouraging people to run Tor nodes:
Activists worldwide use Tor to protect their anonymity online and to circumvent Internet censorship. But they all rely on a limited number of user-provided “relays” to protect themselves and communicate with others. Internet users worldwide need your help to make the Tor network stronger and faster, so take the Tor Challenge today!
The goal is already close, 395 of the 400 new Tor nodes needed to help keep up with the increasing number of people who rely on Tor to access websites and email without surveillance.
The FSF is already running a Tor node (since September 2008). We’re sure a few of you reading this can take the challenge and push them over the goal!
FSF – LibrePlanet featured resource: Free System Distribution Checklist
Jul 2nd
Every month on LibrePlanet, we highlight one resource that is interesting and useful — often one that could use your help.
This month, we are featuring the Free System Distribution Checklist. This page provides a checklist of practical steps you can take to see whether or not a particular distribution complies with the “Free System Distribution Guidelines”.
- Free System Distribution Checklist: http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Free_System_Distribution_Checklist
- Free System Distribution Guidelines: http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html
Do you have a suggestion for next month’s featured resource? Let us know at campaigns@fsf.org.
