freedom bits

Today is day three of the Free Software Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which is undoubtedly one of the best Free Software conferences on this planet -- and a very busy time for everyone present. Besides many meetings and discussions with various people from business and community, pro-freedom activism and presentations are easily filling the day. And to make it even better, today is a national holiday in Brazil, the day of national liberty.

Some of my personal highlights so far included a talk "Free Software -- Social Movement or Technological Revolution?" on the first day just before the opening ceremony. Originally I had planned to give this talk last year already, but before I got the confirmation from FISL I was asked to participate in the United Nations WSIS Contributory Conference on ICT and Creativity in Vienna, which led to the Vienna Manipulations. Fortunately FISL accepted my talk again this year, so I could finally share some of the experiences and thoughts from working at the United Nations.

Yesterday we had a session to introduce the Free Software Foundation Latin America and its work. Richard Stallman and myself were invited as guests, so after Richard explained the importance and goal of the Free Software Foundation, I talked a little bit about the FSF network and the experiences in Rosario, Argentina. Just afterwards I then visited the session of Ciaran O'Riordan who talked about software patents, a topic painfully unknown to too many people in Latin America.

And today there was a session to talk about fully Free Software Distributions, in which Richard Stallman explained the importance of having distributions that are 100% Free Software, followed by a presentation of ututo by Daniel Olivera and a short presentation of AGNULA by myself, also explaining the work FSFE had been doing with its trademark license to keep AGNULA 100% Free. The discussion afterwards then moved more towards one of the hottest topics right now: the problems of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) for human society in general.

Besides these sessions, we were appalled when checking the DVDs distributed by Ubuntu and Kubuntu -- David Turner had little difficulty finding the proprietary drivers on both DVDs, like the invidious drivers of NVidia. While there are unfortunately many distributions who do distribute these drivers, they never claim to be 100% Free Software, as Ubuntu and Kubuntu do.

In short: The alledged freedom is a marketing lie.

So Alexandre Oliva of FSFLA patched the DVD packages, which are now on display at the join Free Software Foundations booth here at the Free Software Forum. In case you are here, I definitely encourage you to stop by, also because we have great new stickers, t-shirts and pins. In case you are not here, don't worry too much, though: Ciaran and I will be bringing at least stickers and pins to the GNU/LinuxTag in Germany.

As some of you know, the past weeks have been rather busy because I was preparing to move to Zürich in Switzerland. After some weeks of preparation, last week was the big step: On Monday the Hamburg office of FSFE was cleared out and back home I finally turned off the fusebox. Besides some hardware replacements, this is the machine that originally hosted the first temporary FSF Europe web page over a coupled channel ISDN link in 2001.

The next days were spent packing and cleaning up, Thursday the truck came and everything (including my beloved motorcycle) was stowed away. After intensive renovation on Friday and Saturday I was finally ready to hand over the keys for my old appartement, just in time for the flight on Sunday.

Monday was filled entirely by first needing to buy a sofa and cupboard because delivery always takes a few weeks. The first station was IKEA, which turned out a somewhat stressful experience: IKEA is near the station Dietlikon, but we almost took the train to Dietikon, which is on the opposite side of town. What a difference an l makes.

The trip to IKEA was not exactly successful, but we found the things we need in a store nearby, also a power drill and some other necessary things for people who move into new appartements. We got back in time for the truck bringing all the furniture and spent until 22:00 unloading, storing and sorting things.

Today I did most of the necessary administrative tasks already, and also started to deal with the customs, which still feel uncomfortable about my motorcycle: because the Hamburg traffic administration has been on strike for 5 weeks now and is likely to continue until at least 3 April, most of my papers are still with them. So I have an unregistered motorcycle with no plates that has incomplete paperwork thanks to the strike in Hamburg. Sorting this out will have to wait until the strike is over, but meanwhile I need to deal with the Swiss customs authorities who threaten to impound my baby. Oh well.

Other than that all things look good so far, though. I found the Swiss authorities very friendly and helpful. Also, although people here speak a little funny from my perspective, I am already willing to swear that people are a little more friendly than most Germans.

Time to get going to sort out some more necessary prerequisites to get back to work here in Switzerland, like a mobile phone and an office for FSFE. I'll keep you posted.