So, all you guys enjoying Linux? Enjoying the benefits of Mandrake? Well, enjoy it while you can, because if Democrat Fritz Hollings (Senator, South Carolina, lobbied via $300,000 USD from the Entertainment Industry) has his way, this bill will get passed and Open Source could be a thing of the past. It's also noteworthy that Hollings has accepted lobby money from Microsoft. He withdrew South Carolina's objections to the M$ DOJ settlement sellout after he got that money. Go figure.
That's right, they are attempting to take you rights to run open source away at the moment, as we speak. At the very least, regulate the hell out of it via the government. My suggestion is that if you are concerned enough about your rights, that you get angry and active. A good place to start is to check out the links below in the below from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the forwarded message from the bugtraq list. Things you can do: http://lwn.net/daily/eff-cbdtpa.php3 Also get up to speed with the articles about this on wired.com, for instance this one: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html This affects everybody unilaterally, and unless people become proactive and oppose the Democrats and their apocalyptic police state laws, the face of the computer industry will *become* a police state. If you care, blast your senator with some firm emails and phone calls, plus get your friends to do it also. We can't let them take our rights away. I for one love Linux and Mandrake enough that I'm willing to Fight. Excerpt from: http://lwn.net/daily/eff-cbdtpa.php3 ----Begin Excerpt------ ALERT: CONGRESS CALLS FOR PUBLIC PARTICIPATION ON DIGITAL MUSIC ISSUES SUBMIT COMMENTS OPPOSING TECHNOLOGY MANDATES (Issued: Friday, March 22, 2002 / Deadline: Monday, April 8, 2002) Introduction: Imagine a world where all digital media technology is either mandatory or forbidden -- Senator Fritz Hollings and a cabal of Hollywood entertainment interests are cooking up a set of laws aimed at conjuring this apocalyptic world into existence. Today, Senator Hollings introduced the alarming Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), which will give Hollywood plutocrats the power to stall new digital media technologies for a year, negotiating a phony "consensus" at lawyer-point with technologists. This "consensus" will receive the force of law, prescribing which user-hostile features are mandatory and which innovative features are forbidden. CBDTPA is derived from the draft SSSCA (Security Systems & Standards Certification Act), the subject of our last alert. Both the House and the Senate have called for comments on the future of digital music, an issue that is deeply entwined with technology mandates. What YOU Can Do Now: This is YOUR chance to voice your opposition to laws that make all digital media technology mandatory or forbidden. * Send the EFF letter below to both the House and the Senate. Feel free to use this letter verbatim, or modify it as you wish. Please be polite and concise, but firm. ------End Excerpt----- ALERT SENT OUT ON BUGTRAQ MAILING LIST: -----Forwarded Message----- From: Jon O. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: New Bill attempts to regulate hardware, software development Date: 22 Mar 2002 14:24:48 -0800 As we are all aware, bugtraq is not a forum to discuss political issues or laws. However, with the continued goverment pressure and attempts to reform and regulate the hardware and software industries, bugtraq readers should be informed and aware of these new laws which will no doubt impact all of us. Senator Hollings is attempting to regulate hardware and software development. The bill can be reviewed here: http://cryptome.org/broadbandits.htm Concerned software developers can submit comments here: http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/input_form.cfm?comments=1 You can review other peoples comments here: http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/input_form.cfm The following senators also support this Bill: Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), John Breaux (D-Louisana) and Dianne Feinstein (D-California). There is a mailing list discussing these issues here: http://lists.microshaft.org/mailman/listinfo/dmca_discuss ----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- As a bonus, here's a section-by-section summary of the bill: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51275,00.html And a collection of info on the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA): http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/ -Declan --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders By Declan McCullagh ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 1:25 p.m. March 22, 2002 PST WASHINGTON -- America's programmers, engineers and sundry bit-heads have not yet figured out how much a new copyright bill will affect their livelihood. When they do, watch for an angry Million Geek March to storm Capitol Hill. A bill introduced this week by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) would roil the electronics industry by forcibly embedding copy protection into all digital devices, from MP3 players to cell phones, fax machines, digital cameras and personal computers. But the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) would also wreak havoc on programmers and software companies -- both those distributing code for free and those selling it. No more than two years and seven months after the bill becomes law, the only code programmers and software firms will be able to distribute must have embedded copy-protection schemes approved by the federal government. To put this in perspective: The CBDTPA would, if enacted in its current form, have the electrifying effect on computer professionals that the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore did to some Democratic Party members. Legal experts said on Friday that the CBDTPA regulates nearly any program, in source or object code, that runs on a PC or anything else with a microprocessor. That's not just Windows media players and their brethren, as you might expect. The CBDTPA's sweeping definition of "any hardware or software" includes word processors, spreadsheets, operating systems, compilers, programming languages -- all the way down to humble Unix utilities like "cp" and "cat." "The definition will cover just about anything that runs on your computer -- except maybe the clock," said Tom Bell, a professor at Chapman University School of Law who teaches intellectual property law. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- End forwarded message ----- Good luck to us all. LX _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
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