Wednesday, November 29, 2006

GPL 3, Stallman and Torvalds

Recent article asserts that the Novell deal will push some who opposed GPL 3 towards its adoption with its stronger restrictions which would have stymied the Novell Microsoft deal.

I am not really up to speed on all this, but at the 1997 or 98 LinuxWorld in San Jose I attended out of curiosity, both Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds participated in the panels and at the time, Linus seemed so with it and in tune with the excitement, whereas Stallman seemed stodgy and foreboding, warning the community not to get carried away with corporate and user friendliness buzz.

The years since have borne out RS's warnings in spades, IMHO. What happened at VA Linux and other companies, to me, means that they might have avoided a whole ugly roller coaster and distraction and just slowly and modestly built their businesses in an organic gradual way if they had heeded his warnings.

Stallman's vision and criticisms are more comprehensive and skeptical about doing business and about globalcorporations than most, though not dogmatic; he gave an example in the '98 panel of IBM as a corporation that had taken a helpful approach to free software and Gnu Linux.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Paul Robeson Memorial Fair Trade Border Concerts and Festivals

A concert in memory of Paul Robeson's cross border concert in 1952 which attracted 40,000 to hear the famous Bass who was forbidden in the blacklist era from crossing the border was planned by the Canadian Auto Workers in 2002, though I cannot find an after the fact report.

Now seems an opportune time to plan peaceful cross border music festivals for summer of 2007 at Vancouver, Windsor, Buffalo, San Diego, Tucson, El Paso etc. aimed to push the newly elected more liberal US congress and Canadian Liberal and NDP politicians with a little more wind in their sails, to dismantle NAFTA, GATT and WTO as they exist in favor of a fair trade set of rules. It is one possible action to push the newly resurgent "liberals" in both countries to do something real and lasting in reponse to the expectations of their supporters, something that I think would also consolidate their transient success, as conservatives and Republicans I know have grave doubts about NAFTA etc.. For that reason my suggestion would be to focus solely on trade issues.

Such artists as Michael Franti, Kanye West, Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt, WIllie Nelson come to mind, but surely people willl think of many others. Sponsors could be Global Exchange, Council of Canadians, unions like CAW, etc.