[free-sklyarov] URGENT: factioning to avoid looking like we are factioning seems highly quixotic

[Branden Robinson]

[I have been a member of EFF since last year.]

Mr. McCandlish,

> It'd just be a day or a few days at most.  (Days that could actually be
> used for better planning, more organizing, etc.  EFFector did NOT go
> out last night with the alert, and is on hold until we sort this out.

Thank you for showing restraint here.  I was quite alarmed when I read what
I perceived to be imperious grandstanding on the part of EFF ("no need to
protest now, the grown-ups are handling it").  I agree with a great many of
the other folks on this list who feel that Adobe's highest priority is to
keep publicity low, and that anything they can do to squelch noteworthy
public protest is to be done.

> > If Adobe asks why the protests are still occuring, say
> > "We're not the protesters; they won't be happy until the charges are
> > dropped."
> 
> This will look very disingenuous to them.  If I were an Adobe rep, I
> wouldn't buy a word of it.  EFF genuinely DOES have to discourage and
> distance itself from Mon. protests.  And I personally think they will
> be counterproductive.  IF Adobe sticks to its guns, we CAN endorse
> and advertise protests, and those protests would be highly on-point.

I disagree.  Adobe stirred up a hornet's nest.  Why not paraphrase some of
the emails you've seen?  Adobe fucked up.  This community is diverse and
not under central command and control; I think that's a *strength*, not a
weakness (viz. the Internet itself).  EFF is an important organization, but
it doesn't speak for everyone, and if Adobe doesn't want to motivate
grass-roots campaigns against them in the future, they should take off the
jackboots.

I'll refrain from any further analogies along those lines, lest I invoke
Godwin's Law.

At any rate, the persecution of Dmitry Sklyarov comes hot on the heels of
legal harassment, along with the threat of fines, against the Free Software
community for developing a graphics program called KIllustrator (apparently
the name was too close to "Illustrator").  Irrespective of the merit of
such a claim, Adobe has since asserted that the German IP attorney firm was
acting indepedently to act in this harassing manner (of an *individual*
software developer, I might add, though, that  they threated the University
for which he worked for good measure).

(References:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=koffice-devel&m=99405898605976&w=2
http://lwn.net/2001/0704/desktop.php3
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/20431.html )

I think it's important to view Adobe's actions over the past couple of days
in the context of the past month.  Is Adobe in the habit of farming out the
"bad cop" role to other parties, so that they can conviently utter "it was
all just a big misunderstanding; we're sorry, but things are now out of our
control" later?  Is all this aggression against the individual software
developer just an unfortunate confluence of coincidences?  Perhaps.  But if
these actions aren't a coordinated effort of harassment, then they can be
interpreted as an institutionalized disregard for the rights of individuals
to communicate freely in the electronic realm.

And it is because EFF professes to defend those very rights that I joined.
Please give no quarter when negotiating with Adobe.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |       Psychology is really biology.
Debian GNU/Linux                   |       Biology is really chemistry.
branden at deadbeast.net              |       Chemistry is really physics.
http://www.deadbeast.net/~branden/ |       Physics is really math.
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