Advogato blog for mpawlo

7 Jun 2003

Sat, 7 Jun 2003 07:42:52 GMT

I have published my notes from my conversation with Mr Phil Zimmermann, over at Greplaw.

13 May 2003

Tue, 13 May 2003 20:56:39 GMT

I have been keeping myself busy with Greplaw submissions and Gnuheter submissions and maintenace (okay, Pawal does most of the maintenance work, but still!). A lot of GNU/Linux and open code advocacy conducted during 10 months running, giving speeches all over the country on legal issues related to open code. Two more to go before Midsummer's Eve, then I shall spend some lecture free time recovering .-)

6 Aug 2002

Tue, 6 Aug 2002 22:16:42 GMT

The Norweigan "Byrett" (district court) will try the Jon Johansen DVD case on December 9, 2002. The trial was supposed to take place this summer, but the court decided to postpone the trial to find a technology savvy judge. The case will be tried by one judge and a panel of two lay assessors.

Jon Johansen is being prosecuted by the Norwegian Economic Crime Unit (OKOKRIM) under Norwegian Criminal Code 145(2). Johansen (probably with help, see link below) created DeCSS software that can enable DVD playback on Linux. It is argued that the DeCSS software is a piracy tool.

Story on Greplaw with some more links.

5 Aug 2002

Mon, 5 Aug 2002 20:38:17 GMT

Not that I want to tamper with Greplaw's current poll, but the speech Bruce Sterling gave at the O'Reilly conference a couple of days ago may prove to be this year's best speech on open code. The speech can not be easily be summed up in a few sentences, but if you are interested in open code you should read the transcript. Science fiction writer Sterling spans over a wide range of subjects, like the nature of the Cathedral, the gurus and why open source, basically, is about hanging out with the cool guys.

17 Jul 2002

Wed, 17 Jul 2002 23:13:24 GMT

I just finished my interview with Nick Moffitt. Moffitt gives tounge-in-cheek answers on questions regarding why we should not use GIFs, what refund day was about plus something on Microsoft and GNU.

15 Jul 2002

Mon, 15 Jul 2002 23:05:49 GMT

I applied classical game theory to open code and I concluded that a company selling proprietary software to third parties will never open its code if the company has a competitor. If you consider open code a benefit to society, you may want to propagate open code-legislation or otherwise try to stimulate new competition in the marketplace. Otherwise companies will stay proprietary and the transformation of the software license landscape will take a very long time.

20 Jun 2002

Thu, 20 Jun 2002 20:42:00 GMT

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is excited to announce the grand opening today of a new cyberlaw community discussion forum: Greplaw.

Our (admittedly lofty) goal? To make Greplaw the most interesting, useful, and frequently updated source of Internet law and policy news and discussion on the Internet.

How do we plan to do that? By connecting with the ever- growing number of cyberlaw-related news sites and law weblogs. That way, we can provide a common forum for the processing and integration of ideas and perspectives on developments that impact the Internet community as a whole: the evolution of copyright, the development of DRM technology, the enactment of new Internet-related legislation, legal aspects and implications of free software and open source, privacy issues and more.

Greplaw is run by Harvard Law School students and alumni and geared for a broad audience. Thus our aim is to make cyberlaw understandable and accessible to those who are new to the subject, while giving those already "in the know" a daily dose of interesting tidbits to chew on.

We also expect to bring a little attitude into the mix.

With this announcement we invite the Internet community to join the Berkman Center to weigh in with story submissions, ideas, and (of course) opinions.

Come check it out. We'll see you there!

Regards

The Greplaw staff

17 Jun 2002

Mon, 17 Jun 2002 19:51:52 GMT

Decided upon invitation from Miguel to join the Greplaw staff. Did a short write-up on the shutdown of some news groups in Norway. I sent it to Declan McCullagh who ran it on Politech and to Drew Cullen who published it at The Register. Larry Lessig visited Stockholm the other day and gave a good lecture at the University of Stockholm.

13 May 2002

Mon, 13 May 2002 20:08:26 GMT

Slashdotted again. This time on a Newsforge piece I wrote recently on the implications a lemon law could have on free software. May be interesting to some advogatuhrs. I think it is great that the discussion flows, even if it sometimes can be hard to read the fierce Slashdot comments .-)

21 Apr 2002

Sun, 21 Apr 2002 16:29:37 GMT

Got slashdotted today. It was quite surprising while I personally submitted the same link about two and a half months ago. Anyway - I think it is good that the discussion on public procurement and open code gets going in a larger forum.