Attempting to respond to all-in-one here so bare with me....
Toby Jaffeytoby@earth.li wrote
I'm sick of being held to ransom by the big corporates. But its no
suprise.
Democracy is a misnomer. Little people don't get heard while the big corporates have more lobbyists than there are MPs MEPs etc to lobby.
What would you suggest instead? Vote anarchy? Rule by benevolent dictator?
Hi Toby, Dunno about 'voting' anarchy, by definition there would be nobody to vote for or any voting system...? However I take your point. Currently what we have is not Democracy (Rulership by the Demos) but a form of autocracy in which we (the Demos) get to vote for a new/continued autocrat every few years. Democracy is supposed to be about the 'will of the people' whatever that is... What I personally would like to see is an end to corporate lobbyism. Since a corporation is not by definition or otherwise a member of the Demos it should thus have no say in a democracy. Now I know all the chestnuts for this line but the bottom line is that we the demos are not represented as extensively as corps. This is un-democratic.
Toby Jaffeytoby@earth.li wrote
Mostly however I will attempt to stay within the land of the 'free', a growing world. So when someone comes along with a proprietary
restricive
DVD software for Linux I'll say "No Thanks".
Ok, but most people will gladly accept it. I've done a lot of support and bits of random code for the Xine project (a GPL'd mpeg2/dvd player for linux). People just want something that works, lots of people have said that they'd willingly buy LinDVD if/when it ever happens, just to have something that works properly.
In my experience "the masses" want things that work and are willing to pay for them and are more than willing to give up freedoms to get them.
Unless they realise (through education etc) that they are giving up freedoms, and the implications for those freedoms and their other life choices by giving up those freedoms, and have a choice to take options that work without compromising those freedoms. This is what 'Free Software' etc is about, as we all know. Freedom to do what you like without the ability to restrict those freedoms for others. It is a bit of a concept shift that is difficult to grasp at first, especially when being FUD-ed (what odds on a 'DecCSS can break your DVDs' story in the future?).
David Freeman david_freeman@rocketmail.com wrote So niave, you mean to say you thought we actually got a say in hwat happens. The only way that happens is by donating lots of money to th goverment, witness Burny Ecelstone(sp?)
Hi again David No, never once beleived we get a say, that is my point. Doesn't matter who I donate a vote to it doesn't give me any input into the process of decision making.
David you ask what we can do. The only thing one can do is to stick to open, non-copyrighted stuff as far as practical.
David Freeman david_freeman@rocketmail.com wrote
Yes I agree, But I am but a drop in th ocean. No one will listen to me. My blank refusal to by a DVD player until region encoding is removed has lost the DVD companies practically nothing.
Boycott those which seek to restrict your choices as both a citizen and a consumer.
Thats fine in theory, but I am only one, and with those on the list, we make up less than one percent of 1 percent of the voting population.
True, which is why we need to pull together on it. To me there will be two kinds of people who take a stand on this sort of thing. Those who boycott altogether and those who will continue to crack, use DecCSS or whatever to protect their right to proper use. Either way if enough people do it then it will have an effect. There are myriads of options for making it downright difficult to enforce this sort of thing. Eg. I have been involved in the past in counter-cult work, where a large religious cult (talk about multi-national corps, this one is the largest real-estate developer and the largest publisher in the world... and it's a charity!!!) was trying to shut down web sites which were critical of it. This org is not short of a few bob. They soon gave up because chasing down the ever-moving domains/mirrors, contacting ISPs, beginning legal action, discovering they had moved again etc, became impossible. Of course with the reduction in 'free' ISPs worldwide such a method might not be so easy in future. But you see my point? Frustrating efforts, spoiling tactics, that sort of thing.
David Freeman david_freeman@rocketmail.com wrote
RIP bill is a classic example of this.
Indeed! I have a friend who works at GCHQ. Its funny talking to him about work because he's not allowed to tell you anything about what he does.... So the other day he says he's really busy bcuz he's got tons to do for some new thing being introduced... trying to be vague or what!. Nearly fell off his chair when I said "Yeah I bet that RIP act has got your lot busy as hell!".
This is great in theory, but for most things the market is several millions of people and we are just a handful.
For now yes, dissenters in this area are just a handful, but as the number of 'free' software users increases, and exposure to this way of thinking also increases, so will the number of dissenters. Especially if we don't all shrug our shoulders and let this matter go away, but keep it 'on the agenda' as it were so that newcomers can also pick up on it.
David Freeman david_freeman@rocketmail.com wrote
Quite true, we need to get the ball to start rolling, this is one of the reason I have been pushing NLD.
The ball is already rolling, we just need to keep it that way. Sorry, probably being a thick but what's NLD?
cheers all. admin : please don't curtail this one yet. Earl