I just finished listening to/watching the Flash version of Lawrence Lessig's 'free culture' talk. 31 minutes, HIGHLY recommended - and a transcript and MP3 (should really be Ogg/Vorbis) version are available.

One of his main questions to the audience (OSCON 2002) is 'What have you done?'. A very, very good question. I think the Campaign for digital rights is doing good work here in the UK. In Belgium, my home country, I'm ashamed to say that there is no coordinated action regarding this nonsense. So what am I doing? I'm going to try summing up here, not necessarily in order of importance.

First of all, I'm a member of EFF.

Secondly, when I write software, I GPL it.

Thirdly, after a happy couple of years working, I am now doing a masters in public policy. I am focussing my attention on intellectual property and its threats to innovation, freedom and democracy (amongst a few other things). As much as I prefer just writing code and being a unix sysadmin, I feel we need more people who understand the issues at stake (that's people like us) stepping from behind the screens, and more actively trying to influence the debate. I have to write a dissertation next summer - guess what that will be about.

The last thing I do is talk about intellectual property and its effects to people I know. Friends, family, classmates, etc. My girlfriend calls me a 'computer activist' - something she says she didn't know existed until she met me.

I've also written a few articles about the issue for a now defunct Belgian computer magazine (corporate.net).

All of this is something, but not enough. I want to do more - time permitting of course. Maybe more precisely, I want to be more effective. I would like to hear and learn from you what you are doing! E-mail me...