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A2K v DMCA in Australia (20 unread)

A2K from FSF Europe's Georg Greve

Posted: December 3rd, 2008, 8:44am CET by lucychili

"[...] Both patents and standards derive their justification from the public benefit, yet upholding one deprives the other of its function. Standards seek to counteract monopolies, patents establish them. Or, as Tomoko Miyamoto, Senior Counsellor of the Patent Law Section in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said in her presentation: Patent thickets and patent hold-ups arise from legitimate exploitation of the exclusive rights intentionally conferred by patents. They are a normal and intended consequence of the patent system. [...]"br /br /The article just went online at a href="http://fsfeurope.org/standards/ps" target="_blank"http://fsfeurope.org/wbrstandards/ps/a
Join the UN open letter - action to protect the public-ness and the egalitarian nature of the Internet.

Posted: December 2nd, 2008, 5:43am CET by lucychili

a href="http://www.itforchange.net/ict-gov/ig/195-igf-open-letter.html" class="contentpagetitle" /a p Most of us tend to take the commons and the public nature of the Internet for granted. However, increasing corporatisation and control of the Internet are strongly threatening these fundamental characteristics of the Internet as we know it. Therefore, six civil society organisations in India have proposed an open letter to the UN Internet Governance Forum which meets for its third annual meeting between 3rd and 6th December in Hyderabad. The letter exhorts urgent global action to ensure that the public-ness and the egalitarian nature of the Internet are preserved as its essential features. The possibilities of democracy, equity and social justice in our societies will be significantly impacted by the extent to which we can achieve this objective. /pdivTo read the complete letter a href="http://www.itforchange.net/media/igf/Open_letter_to_the%20Internet_Governance_Forum-1.pdf" target="_blank" title="Letter to IGF"click here/a. pFor the current endorsement list a href="http://www.itforchange.net/component/content/article/196-igf-.html" target="_blank"click here/a/ppa href="http://www.itforchange.net/component/content/article/195-igf-open-letter.html" target="_blank"Sign/a the open letterbr //p/div
Respect

Posted: December 1st, 2008, 3:17pm CET by lucychili

Brendan Scott a href="http://brendanscott.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/copyright-as-respect-pfft/"writes/a about a nasty twist to the idea of showing respect by copying or following a style or meme.
pwned by the pipes

Posted: November 11th, 2008, 8:57am CET by lucychili

span style="font-weight:bold;"EFF Gwen Hinze on the risks of a WIPO Broadcasting Treaty/spanbr /br /span style="font-style:italic;"EFF and a diverse group of public interest NGOs, libraries and major U.S. tech industry players a href="http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/11/wipo-broadcasting-treaty-back-dead"continue to oppose/a the current treaty draft because it's not limited to signal protection, but would instead create a new layer of exclusive intellectual property rights for broadcasters and cablecasters that would harm access to knowledge and consumers' existing rights under national copyright law, endanger citizen broadcasting on the Internet, raise competition policy concerns and stifle technological innovation. /span
Why I copyfight by Cory Doctorow

Posted: November 9th, 2008, 7:28am CET by lucychili

a href="http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2008/11/cory-doctorow-why-i-copyfight.html"Why I copyfight/a Cory Doctorowbr /br /An extract :br /br /span style="font-style:italic;"Indeed, copyists are busily building an elaborate ethos of what can and can't be shared, and with whom, and under what circumstances. They join private sharing circles, argue norms among themselves, and in word and deed create a plethora of "para-copyrights" that reflect a cultural understanding of what they're meant to be doing.br /br /The tragedy is that these para-copyrights have almost nothing in common with actual copyright law. No matter how hard you adhere to them, you're probably breaking the law — so if you're in making anime music videos (videos for pop music made by cleverly splicing together clips of anime movies — google for "amv" to see examples), you can abide by all the rules of your group about not showing them to outsiders and only using certain sources for music and video, but you're still committing millions of dollars' worth of infringement every time you sit down to your keyboard.br /br /It's not surprising that para-copyright and copyright don't have much to say to one another. After all, copyright regulates what giant companies do with each other. Para-copyright regulates what individuals do with each other in a cultural settings. Why be surprised that these rulesets are so disjointed?br /br /It's entirely possible that there's a detente to be reached between the copyists and the copyright holders: a set of rules that only try to encompass "culture" and not "industry." But the only way to bring copyists to the table is to stop insisting that all unauthorized copying is theft and abr /crime and wrong. People who know that copying is simple, good, and beneficial hear that and assume that you're either talking nonsense or that you're talking about someone else./span
KEI on Copyright and accessibility at WIPO

Posted: November 7th, 2008, 4:02am CET by lucychili

KEI Statement on SCCR future workbr /br /a href="http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif"KEI/a supports work on copyright limitations and exceptions. Like many others, we think that access for disabled persons should be given priority. The World Blind Union (WBU) has petitioned WIPO consistently on this topic since 2002, at SCCR 7. It is time to address the human rights of disabled persons.br /br / asks the SCCR to remove the broadcasting treaty from the agenda until such time as there is greater consensus over the purpose of the treaty.br /br /Piracy of broadcasts is already illegal under numerous treaties, including those that deal with copyright, or regulatory policy. If new economic rights are created for cable and satellite television channels, there will be a huge concentration of rights in a handful of corporations, at the expense of consumers and creative communities.br /br /KEI suggests the SCCR broaden its program on the issue of performers. The SCCR might gather data and statistics on the distribution of income from performances, or ask the Secretariat to commission a study on the factors that influence the distribution of revenues to performers. This should also fruitfully consider the types of alternative remuneration schemes referred to by the IMMF, considering the possibility that there are limits to the enforcement of exclusive rights.br /br /The orphan works element of the EU proposal could be included in the agenda item for limitations and exceptions.
No filter tshirt

Posted: November 1st, 2008, 6:30am CET by lucychili

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Action needed to expand exceptions and limitations to copyright law,

Posted: November 1st, 2008, 3:47am CET by lucychili

a href="http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/intellectual_property/development.research/49.pdf"Action needed to expand exceptions and limitations to copyright law/a by Gwen Hinze (July 2008) a href="http://www.twnside.org.sg/index.htm"Third world network/abr /br /These discussions flowed from three proposals to give access to the most vulnerable or socially submitted to WIPO by the government of Chile at prioritized sectors.br /A paper looking at international negotiations for exemptions and limitations:br /br /1. Identification, from the national intellectual property systems of WIPO Member States, of national models and practices concerning exceptions and limitations.br /br /2. Analysis of the exceptions and limitations needed to promote creation and innovation and the dissemination of developments stemming therefrom.br /br /3. Establishment of agreement on exceptions and limitations for purposes of public interest that must be envisaged as a minimum in all national legislations for the benefit of the community.
Facing fear

Posted: August 25th, 2008, 10:40pm CEST by lucychili

The world is sometimes a fearful place.br /I am sometimes struck dumb because my mind is out of gamut for the questions it poses.br /With a world mapped in black and white it is hard to express amberbr /and not have someone think I am meaning some kind of sad grey.br / br /This is why I have been thinking about ternary systems.br /The idea that I could actually define a place which did not map to 1normal or 0epicfail.br /Some kind of constructive starting point for an alternative learning journey.br / br /Donna Williams has written some interesting work on a href="http://thefci.syr.edu/3-2wil.htm"system forfeiture/a:br / br /span style="font-style:italic;"All individuals with autism find (consciously or subconsciously) their own adaptations to their pervasive developmental disorder. That is, they will find their own way of managing the relationship or non-relationship between their various systems and how they operate in interaction with "the world." This means that, for example, someone whose systems are not sufficiently integrated may ignore all emotional signals but can accumulate and process factual information in an unemotive, purely logical way. It may mean that auditory processing is "switched off" while visual or tactile processing is "switched on." It may mean that auditory comprehension is "switched on" but the processing of all "body messages" (such as need to use the toilet, hunger,cold, etc.) are put "on hold." It may mean that someone with difficulty holding awareness of two things at the same time, such as internal and external may switch awareness to one or the other but be unable to make sense of or interact at a functional level when required by the environment to use both internal and external awareness at the same time. These combinations of "systems forfeiting" are almost infinitely variable but help minimize "overload" (and its behavioral consequences).br / br /These combinations of systems forfeiting are also almost unimaginable to people without autism, in whom systems of functioning have a reasonable degree of working integration. This inability, on the part of experts (who don't have autism) to imagine (and thereby plan out how to work with successfully) this manageable (autistic) state of disarray can lead to (among other things) two unfortunate circumstances for FC:br /(a) use of inappropriate testing techniques that are based on misinformed premises and faulty assumptions andbr /(b) misinformed assumptions (and proclamations) of how things work or don't work that undermine credibility./spanbr / br /I am sometimes caught in loops.br /br /Sometimes this is like sliding into a daydream and waking up to realise I am staring.br /This can happen with men, old people, women, horses, trees, whatever. Awestruck at life.br /br /Sometimes it is a matter of looking someone in the face but visualising them at ages 5 through 80, with resolution which is too intense or impolite.br /br /Sometimes my self is backgrounded and my eyes follow my fears.br /I care about the impact of my actions on others.br /I am sensitive to how it feels for others when I get it wrong.br /This unfortunately makes a feedback loop where the fear has its own gravity and I will stare at someone's irregular teeth, at a mark, a wart or anything else which I am afraid of getting tripped by. I can be fearful of beauty because I can be tripped on it.br /Mostly it is the fear of others that I am afraid of.br /When this happens my self will be found running around inside my head frantically looking for the reset button.br /br /I realise that these things are not usual.br /I spend a lot of time looking down or away from people if I am feeling whelmed.br /It is a way of being careful of other people when I am feeling unsure of myself.br /I need better strategies than that, and I am working on them, but for today that is roughly where I am at.br /br /I do apologise to anyone for whom I have been difficult. I have not had the understanding to be able to map what was going on until recently and it has taken me a while to start thinking about it in ways which might be useful for other people and for myself.
ACTA proposed copyright treaty

Posted: June 10th, 2008, 3:14pm CEST by lucychili

The next piece of 'a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/perspectives/digital-copyright-its-all-wrong/2008/06/09/1212863545123.html"governance/a' using IP based property and control.
Michael Geist notes exemptions for circumvention in NZ

Posted: April 11th, 2008, 2:05am CEST by lucychili

DMCA doesnt bite as badly in NZ. Nice work.br /a href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2829/125/"http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2829/125//a
Australia abstains on OOXML

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 11:45pm CEST by lucychili

Australia's NO vote was pivotal, so in effect the abstain is likely to win the day for OOXML.br /It does seem a lot of work to go to in order to have no opinion.br /br /As I understand it many committee members were quietly hopeful of a No vote. Australia is not the only a href="http://www.en.ds.dk/4227"nation/a where people have invested a lot of time and expressed their perspectives thoroughly and carefully through this process only to find that the final vote bears no connection to their work.br /br /There have certainly been no shortage of a href="http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20051216153153504"concerns/a, published openly, expressed to Standards Australia, or to ISO directly.br /br /Sadly given the other a href="http://www.noooxml.org/irregularities"irregularities/a in the process I am not surprised about Australia's abstension. It has been an amazing a href="http://www.csamuel.org/2007/10/17/microsofts-tactics-are-killing-the-standards-process/"process/a to watch.br /br /So the abstension is likely to mean a win. That brings Australia a pre-stamped commitment to a format which:br /* needs yet to be completely written and implemented, br /* in its current and intended state conflicts with other standards and br /* is only drafted in terms of its relationship with closed Microsoft formatsbr /* is not considered legally safe for interoperability work.br /br /Quoting Jan Wildeboer Red Hat EMEA Evangelist Open Source Affairsbr /br /"OOXML was created solely for use in Microsoft applications. It is not currently suitable as an international standard, because it cannot be completely implemented by anyone without access to inside information. Although it is more than 6,000 pages long, it contains various references to things that are defined only in Microsoft's software, not in the specification itself."br /br /============================br /br /Needless to say the ISO stamp does not change any of the realities described below, and so the inability to express the fact that the proposal is broken through the ISO process will likely result in a change in what the ISO brand means rather than resulting in an acceptance of the proposal as something which can be relied upon as a useful tool in making interoperable data.br /It will be interesting to see where nations will look to in the future in order to find whether a format can effectively serve a public function without causing vendor lockin and anti-trust concerns.br /br /From: Peter Drummond in an Open Letter to ISO.br /To: ua.gro.sdradnats|tcestni#ua.gro.sdradnats|tcestnibr /Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:47:55 +1000br /Subject: OOXML ISO proposalbr /br /Dear ISO Standards Committee -br /br /As Australia's IUPAP representative for computational physics, and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, I would like to make the strongest possible objection to the proposal that the OOXML specification be adopted by the ISO. Australia should vote to reject this proposal.br /br /This proposal is along the lines that ‘We wish to propose an alternative standard for measurement called the Microsoft metre, which equals 3.14159 standard metres, except on leap years, when it equals 2.71828 standard metres’. Such a ridiculous proposal is unacceptable.br /br /The simple point here is that there is an existing international standard called the ODF, just as we have an existing international standard for length (the meter), time (the second) and weight (the kilogram). The entire point of having a standard is the uniqueness of the standard!br /br /To have two completely incompatible standards is not necessary, and would lead to the destruction of the standardization process. In the long run, this is less efficient, increases costs, and greatly reduces the chances of archival documents being readable in the distant future.br /br /If a corporation or individual wishes to make technical improvements to a standard like ODF, there are channels and procedures for this. It is totally counterproductive and foolish to try and create a second incompatible standard, purely to afford competitive advantages to one company.br /br /Finally, I haven't even mentioned the numerous technical problems to the OOXML proposal. This is so complex and poorly specified that there appears to be no fully compliant implementation in existence now, nor any means to verify compliance. To avoid embarrassment, please vote NO.br /br /Yours sincerely,br /br /Peter D Drummond, FAA,br /Professor of Theoretical Physics,br /University of Queensland.
Happy document freedom day

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 7:44am CET by lucychili

Today is Document Freedom Day: Roughly 200 teams from more than 60 countries worldwide are organising local activities to raise awareness for Document Freedom and Open Standards. To support the initiatives surrounding the first day to celebrate document liberation, DFD starter packs containing a DFD flag, t-shirts and leaflets have been sent to the first 100 registered teams over the past weeks.br /a href="http://www.documentfreedom.org/"http://www.documentfreedom.org//abr /a href="http://wiki.apc.org.au/index.php?title=Document_Freedom_Day_2008"http://wiki.apc.org.au/index.php?title=Document_Freedom_Day_2008/abr /br /Open Document Format (ODF) is the first and only *Open* Standard standardised in ISO. It is supported by many applications, some of them proprietary, some of them Free Software. If you are currently using any of the applications below, your software already supports Open Document Format:br /br /* AbiWordbr /* Google Docsbr /* IBM Lotus Symphonybr /* KOfficebr /* NeoOfficebr /* OpenOffice.orgbr /* StarOffice br /br /If you are not already using any of these applications, the following applications are Free Software and available for public download. Try ODF today:br /br /* a href="http://www.abisource.com/"AbiWord/abr /* a href="http://www.koffice.org/"KOffice/abr /* a href="http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php"NeoOffice/abr /* a href="http://www.openoffice.org/"OpenOffice.org/a br /br /Wikipedia on a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_software"OpenDocument/abr /br /OOXMLbr /Microsoft's promise covers only fully-compliant implementations.br /But Microsoft Office isn't fully compliant with the OOXML (OfficeOpen XML) specification, therefore those who seek interoperability with Microsoft's software won't be covered by its promise.br /br /Correction: It also doesn't cover the optional or not fully detailed parts of the specification. Almost everything is optional and far from complete in the specification.br /a href="http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/stdlib/offdoc/mision"http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/stdlib/offdoc/mision/a
OOXML is not legally safe for FLOSS

Posted: March 13th, 2008, 8:57am CET by lucychili

SFLC recommends against the establishment of OOXML as an international standard and cautions GPL implementers not to rely on the OSP.br /br /a href="http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/osp-gpl.html"http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/osp-gpl.html/abr /br /Groklaw commentary:br /a href="http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080312151954507"http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080312151954507/a
EDRI's Statement at WIPO SCCR on limitations and exceptions

Posted: March 12th, 2008, 3:41am CET by lucychili

European Digital Rights, EDRI, represents 28 privacy and civil rights organisations from 17 different countries in Europe. As this is the first time EDRI takes the floor, we’d like to congratulate you and your vice chairs on your election.br /br /Not surprisingly, we are strongly in favour of starting the work that would hopefully lead to new international instrument on limitations and exceptions of copyright. EDRI therefore warmly supports the proposal presented by honourable delegate of Chile.br /br /However, EDRI firmly believes that any new instrument should have also a strong focus – for example as a part of best practices - on the rights of totally ordinary citizens --- in addition to the professional or institutional users that traditionally occupy the center stage during these discussions of limitations and exceptions.br /br /One of the key reason for this is that value of all kinds of consumer goods is based nowadays increasingly on the software and content and not so much on hardware. As a concequence copyright has to learn to live with consumer protection regulation. From our perspective, it would makebr /most sense to address this challenge inside the copyright system at the international level. In practice this means that the proposed research should also seek to answer questions like “is it ok to hack your iPhone even if that requires making a derivate copy of the software ” and “is it legal to create tools that help consumer to transfer maps from his old navigator to a new one even if the license agreements forbid it”. As far as we know, answers to this kind of questions are not yet firmly established at any jurisdictions and therefore task at hand would be forward-looking global harmonization..br /br /Finally, EDRI would like to see very much such limitations and exceptions those aim is to protect free speech – for example parody and satire, quotations for criticism, usage of works in news - included extensively to the process. Copyright has a dark history for being a tool for censorship and oppression of controversial opinions – hopefully the possible new instrument could be a tool for redeeming this black past.
Proposal by Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua and Uruguay for Work Related to Exceptions and Limitations

Posted: March 12th, 2008, 3:36am CET by lucychili

a href="http://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/1/wipo_proposal_lne.pdf"Proposal/a by Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua and Uruguay for Work Related to Exceptions and Limitations.br /br /WIPO copyright review. Perhaps a chance for Australia to pull back some basic rights to access information and to participate in technology innovation in DRM multivendor environments?
KEI Statement at WIPO SCCR on agenda item on limitations and exceptions

Posted: March 12th, 2008, 3:26am CET by lucychili

KEI supports the proposal by Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua and Uruguay for a strong substantive work program in the area of limitations and exceptions, and urges the SCCR members to give this topic the time, attention and care that it deserves. These are very important and challenging tasks. They go to the very core concerns of consumers, and they are highly relevant to the WIPO development agenda.br /br /We welcome the constructive comments by the United States and other countries, and agree that work on norm setting should be informed by evidence, careful analysis, and that there is a tension with the need for national discretion in implementing treaty flexibilities.br /br /We note that Chile indicated that the SCCR work on exceptions and limitations could proceed within the framework of existing copyright treaties, and that it would be fruitful to address specific problems.br /br /Among the (many) questions the SCCR might consider, are the following:br /br /1. Has the Internet created a compelling need to develop global norms for limitations and exceptions, in order to foster cross border publishing and sharing of information?br /br /2. Do distance education services need minimum exceptions to truly develop as a platform, and to provide the type of services that are important for development?br /br /3. Is the Appendix to the Berne Convention working? Does it need an "update" for the digital age?br /br /4. How do DRM/TPM technologies work with consumer rights? Do we have the right models for state practice in implementing the 1996 WIPO digital treaties, as it relates to LE?br /br /5. Do countries have the flexibility in the TRIPS to deal with the orphan works problem? Is a cross border solution important?br /br /6. How can countries implement the flexibilities in TRIPS Articles 40, on the control of anti-competitive practices, and Article 44, concerning alternatives to injunctions.br /br /a href="http://www.keionline.org/"http://www.keionline.org//a
ooxml process in Greece

Posted: February 22nd, 2008, 9:53pm CET by lucychili

The Greek Head of Delegation is elected amid questions on the legality of the procedurebr /br /In the meeting of 2008-02-21 of the Technical Committee 48 of ELOT (the Greek ISO National Body), Sokratis Maanian was elected as Head of the Greek Delegation to the OpenXML Ballot Resolution Meeting, rather than Antonis Christofides, with 8 votes against 6. The vote was secret, despite the protest by Antonis Christofides. In addition, four additional organisations had been appointed committee members without prior notification.br /a href="http://elot.ece.ntua.gr/te48/ooxml/2008-02-21-meeting-en"br /http://elot.ece.ntua.gr/te48/ooxml/2008-02-21-meeting-en/a
Developers warned over OOXML patent risk

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 7:32am CET by lucychili

"David Vaile, executive director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Center at the University of New South Wales, said that Microsoft participants at a recent symposium on the issue found it challenging to explain how an ordinary person 'or even an ordinary lawyer' could easily determine which parts of the specification were covered. 'This lack of certainty would mean a cautious lawyer may be reluctant to advise any third party to rely on the promise without extensive and potentially quite expensive analysis, and even that could be inconclusive,' Vaile said. 'In turn, this could restrict its viability as a usable standard for less well-resourced users, including small developers and many public organizations.'"br /br /a href="http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62037862,00.htm"zdnetasia/a
Australian Linux community celebrates a year of leadership.

Posted: January 3rd, 2008, 9:23pm CET by lucychili

Best wishes to local Free and Open Source Software communities around the country as they recover from end of year celebrations and muster themselves for LCA08br /br /Open source and free software has provided opportunities for local, national and international leadership for many Australians in 2007. These leaders leverage a whole body of code, knowledge and community support. Open sharing and collaboration make it possible for Australians to participate, innovate using these technologies and communities of knowledge.br /br /2007 started with Linux Conference Australia at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. The 2007 team organised a winning conference attracting record attendance. An Open Day event brought many new people in to see games, solar cars, and open office desktop tools. The audio visual team did an exceptional job making the presentations available online.br /br /During March WikimediaAU enjoyed a visit from Jimmy Wales and is forming an organisation. Jimmy toured for educationau and promoted open participation and open technologies for education. An Australian and New Zealand Open Geospatial group is also forming.br /br /A rolling tide of BarCamps was initiated by Ben Balbo resulting in some great events and lots of learning about organising unconferences.br /br /In April, Brisbane based, Anthony Towns completed his term as leader of the Debian project seeing in the new GPLv3 and Debian Etch.br /br /Sridhar Dhanapalan fought through a car accident to still represent Linux at the CEBIT conference in May.br /br /June saw Melissa Draper, leader of UbuntuAU presenting on women in open technologies both at local community events, and internationally.br /br /Adelaide University student, Joel Stanley won an OLPC internship and contributed to advocacy around the world.br /br /Open source educator, Peter Ruwoldt was chosen as an observer for the Information Economy Advisory Board in South Australia.br /br /Tim Ansell's space game Thousand Parsec won code time in the Google Summer of Code. This year, the program brought together 900 students and nearly 1500 mentors across 90 countries to contribute to over 130 different open source software projects. A second project the Google Highly Open Participation Contest was also launched offering High School students a model for contributing to key open source projects.br /br /On September 15 a record number of teams participated in Software Freedom Day 2007. This international event is coordinated annually by a Software Freedom International, this year led by Australian, Pia Waugh. Teams worldwide distributed and demonstrated free open source software in their local communities. It was especially great to see more teams participating from regional areas.br /br /September also saw Pia and Jeff Waugh launch of the Australian Open Source Industry and Community Census.br /br /Open source software was discussed and distributed at education events including Computers in Education Group of South Australia and at Monash University OpenCDs of open source software for use on Windows computers was distributed at both events.br /br /Copyright was a hot topic at the ALIA conference and Creative Commons Australia and New Zealand teams produced local adaptations of the Creative Commons licences.br /br /November brought the eeePC with Linux installed to retail outlets in Australia.br /It is selling well, having sold out its first run, and is bringing open code to more Australian homes.br /br /Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association conference in Melbourne included excellent sessions on several open philosophies, pedagogy and projects including Alan Kay's ideas on education by Bill Kerr, Dr Kathryn Moyle on pedagogy first, Bryan McHugh on VELS - a multi-domain approach using free software.br /br /The theme 'Success in Development Business' headlined the Open Source Developers' Conference 2007. Arjen Lentz lead the Brisbane event covering numerous programming languages across a range of operating systems, and related topics such as business processes, licensing, and strategy.br /br /Pia and Jeff Waugh won this year's State Pearcey Award for Young Achievers for work educating the ICT sector about free software.br /br /The University of New South Wales and Pia Waugh have worked together on an OOXML CyberLaw Symposium to assess the ISO proposal. Linux Australia also submitted comments to Standards Australia on the proposal.br /br /So now is a time for thanking the local user group organisers and for celebrating a fine year. The new year starts with the Linux Conference in Melbourne led by Donna Benjamin. A week of collaboration and challenging ideas around open technologies. Bring it on.

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A2K v DMCA in Australia (20 unread)

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