[free-sklyarov] The OSCON sleeps on ...

Seth David Schoen schoen at loyalty.org
Tue Jul 24 17:50:57 PDT 2001


Bob La Quey writes:

> San Diego is a beautiful place. Laying around in a first class hotel
> by the bay, talking techie talk, drinking a cool beer afterward, ...
> Well I suppose it is easy to see why the OSCON is somnolent. 
> 
> In private conversations with key figures in the Open Source Community
> and from the Free Software Foundation, I find no special concern or 
> passion for this issue. More a matter of fact, business as usual, let 
> the EFF do it attitude. Dmitry Sklyarov is in jail and the Free/Open Source
> software community is taking a "ho hum" attitude. 
> 
> Were this just another civil suit I could see that. But given the
> egregious nature of the action precipitated by Adobe, and carried
> out by the FBI, with the full sanction (apparently) of the DOJ one
> must wonder at the laid back attitude. 

I've never been to OSCON, and I hear it's a good conference, but
certainly (like a few other conferences) it is pretty expensive and
most representation there is from businesses.

In the LUGs around here I hear a _lot_ of concern.  And most of the
most prominent people in the community have spoken out in public, all
the way to Alan Cox making a very dramatic statement.  I could give a
number of other examples of Linux and free software people getting
involved.  The San Jose event was listed by Rick Moen on the Bay Area
Linux Events page, and the co-ordinator on site was Don Marti, the
Vice President of SVLUG (the largest Bay Area LUG and allegedly the
largest LUG in the world).

The FSF's _home page_ has a prominent news item about the arrest and
protests.  And look at the top of Richard M. Stallman's personal home
page:

   The EFF has temporarily withdrawn from the protests against the arrest
   of Russian programmer Dmitri Sklyarov, since Adobe's management has
   bowed to pressure by agreeing to meet with the EFF. The anti-Adobe
   protests may be rescheduled later if necessary, but on Monday, July 23
   there may still be demonstrations in many cities. Look here for the
   one nearest you. This is still a good opportunity to speak out against
   the DMCA, and in favor of freedom.
   Sklyarov is a Russian programmer arrested, on a visit to the US, for
   developing software that the US government doesn't want you to have.
   Time was, the USSR imprisoned people for forbidden copying, and
   American scientists and historians were arrested on absurd pretexts
   when visiting the USSR. Now the tables have turned.

It is extraordinary for Stallman to do anything to support a
proprietary software programmer or a proprietary software program.

I don't agree with you; I think there's an unprecedented amount of
concern.  I've attended most Bay Area rallies supported by the local
free software community (the Great Linux Revolt, Windows Refund
Day, the MPAA protest, and some others).  Some of those events were
called for much more convenient times (not during most people's work
day), with much more notice and much better advance publicity.  Yet
this event got a turnout comparable to the largest of those events,
and the presence in other cities was far and away better than Windows
Refund Day.

I don't agree that the community isn't extremely concerned.  In
regular life, we probably wouldn't care for Elcomsoft that much.  But
this is really serious.  "What do we want?"  "Free Dmitry!"  "When do
we want it?"  "Yesterday!"

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> | Its really terrible when FBI arrested
Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/ | hacker, who visited USA with peacefull
down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF) | mission -- to share his knowledge with
     http://www.freesklyarov.org/      | american nation.  (Ilya V. Vasilyev)




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