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Russell McOrmond | 17 Feb 2012 03:03
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Update on Bill C-11 : the final few weeks...


   I'm sending a general note in case anyone in these lists aren't aware 
of the current happenings with Bill C-11: the Copyright + Paracopyright 
(TPM) bill.

   This is the identical bill as C-32, re-tabled on September 29, 2011.

   It passed second reading this Monday, and the new special legislative 
committee had their first meeting on Tuesday where the Conservatives set 
the time allocation for how much longer there would be any witnesses and 
all discussions for clause-by-clause of this massive and still widely 
misunderstood omnibus bill.

   http://c11.ca/com

   The imposed plan is to meet for 12 hours per week (normally 
committees only meet 4h/week), with all work ceasing on March 29 at 
which point the bill will be reported back to the house. There will be 
witnesses starting Feb 27'th after the break, with clause-by-clause of 
the bill starting on March 14'th.

   That's it folks.  The Conservatives, with 3 parliamentary secretaries 
in the committee, seem to be stick handling this one stronger than I 
think we've seen any bill.   It was obvious from the first meeting that 
anything proposed by a Conservative was quickly passed, and any 
amendments proposed by the opposition was rejected.

   If this bill is to get fixed, it will need to be the Conservatives 
that do it.  This is a majority government, and the Conservatives are 
aggressively using all the power that gives them.  An opposition party
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Russell McOrmond | 23 Dec 2011 16:24
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Whose Software Freedom? A 20-year perspective.

  I posted something to the blog this morning
http://www.cluecan.ca/node/1198 which might be interesting to discuss.
 It is one of the constant conversations that I've observed in the
FLOSS community over the last 20 years, with those conversations
sometimes being quite heated.

  Hopefully we can discuss what motivates us to participate in FLOSS
communities.

  While I know what I wrote will be seen as controversial, the
intention is to spark conversation in our community.  Hopefully we can
do so without there being any flame-war.

  Thanks, and best of the season!

--

-- 
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>

Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
http://l.c11.ca/ict/

"The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
portable media player from my cold dead hands!" http://c11.ca/own
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Russell McOrmond | 20 Dec 2011 14:54
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MPs in ridings -- can us FLOSS folks get in touch with them?


   Last Thursday the House of Commons adjourned, meaning MPs are in 
their respective ridings until the end of January.  As I wrote in 
http://c11.ca/5387 , this is an important time for us to get in touch 
with them.

   For the Canadian FLOSS community, the focus needs to be on 
"technological protection measures".   I've come to believe that 
anything we say about the Copyright parts of the bill will serve as a 
distraction from the Paracopyright parts which represent the greatest 
threat to software choice and thus FLOSS.   I also believe politicians 
are knowingly making policy choices on Copyright, but that they don't 
understand technology enough to understand the impacts of Paracopyright.

   I've sent messages to try to meet my own MP on this issue again, and 
hope that other people will as well.   The more technical people talk to 
MPs about the Paracopyright aspects of C-11, the more chance we have of 
avoiding the harm the passage of the current bill will have to our sector.

   I'm here to help if anyone wants to discuss the policy itself, and 
why I've taken the focus that I have.

--

-- 
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
  rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
  http://l.c11.ca/ict

  "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
   manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
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Scott Elcomb | 7 Dec 2011 17:49
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Test Post

Checking if the list is still alive - I just recieved my monthly
subsciption reminder... for Sept.

Best,
--

-- 
  Scott Elcomb
   <at> psema4 on Twitter / Identi.ca

  Atomic OS: Self Contained Microsystems
  http://code.google.com/p/atomos/

  Member of the Pirate Party of Canada
  http://www.pirateparty.ca/
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Russell McOrmond | 5 Dec 2011 18:29
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Writing letters to Peter Braid (MP for Kitchener-Waterloo) about CarrierIQ

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 1:23 AM, Bob Jonkman wrote:
> Here's an article full of quotes from researchers, vendors and carriers.
> Largely the particular incident with Carrier IQ seems to be a tempest in a
> teapot.  But Paul's concerns about conducting and publishing such research
> in Canada once Bill C11 becomes law are very valid, and should be cause for
> concern for any technologists.
>
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57336064-281/carrier-iq-verbatim-answers-from-company-exec-researchers/
>
>   By now it seems abundantly clear that, contrary to earlier reports,
>   the Carrier IQ technology is not actually a "rootkit keylogger."

Bob, and others.

  While this specific software turned out to not be as bad as
reported, it is still worth writing to Peter Braid (MP for
Kitchener-Waterloo) who will be part of the C-11 special legislative
committee.

  The issue isn't so much whether this specific program was malicious,
but that the interests of the carriers (previous owner of the device?)
and the rights of the current owner may conflict.

  Bill C-11 includes the following:

"30.63 It is not an infringement of copyright for a person to
reproduce a work or other subject-matter for the sole purpose, with
the consent of the owner or administrator of a computer, computer
system or computer network, of assessing the vulnerability of the
computer, system or network or of correcting any security flaws."
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Russell McOrmond | 6 May 2011 01:55
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Fwd: [kwlug-disc] Meeting with (not so new) MPs in KW region.

  I am forwarding a letter I wrote for the Kitchener-Waterloo mailing
list post-election that applies to people nationally as well.  It is
in reply to a letter archived at
http://kwlug.org/pipermail/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org/2011-May/008518.html

Summary:

  a) We need to be busy this summer talking to MPs about copyright.
The more they speak with people from our community, the better.  There
are many misconceptions we can help clear up.

  b) Given we are in a majority government situation, we need to frame
our interactions in a way that will be embraced by that majority
government (currently Conservative).  I give some suggestions in this
email.

Any other ideas?  Discussion?  Proposals for events/meetings/etc?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Russell McOrmond
Date: Thu, May 5, 2011 at 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Meeting with (not so new) MPs in KW region.
To: KWLUG discussion

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 4:06 PM, unsolicited wrote:
> I think this idea, unfortunately, will be very true in many areas and bills.
> The Conservatives no longer having to pander in any way to any other party.

 A majority government is a majority government, not matter what
party is in power.  While I am not a fan of single-party majority
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Russell McOrmond | 3 Apr 2011 01:04
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Looking for electoral district commentary..

  Today I paid a visit two the top two candidates in my riding of
Ottawa South, and posted my thoughts at http://BillC32.ca/5309

  I am wondering if people could take the time to do something similar
for their districts?  Pick the top candidates, your favorite
candidates, or whatever you like.  If you *are* a candidate, this is
an open invitation to post election related material to the Canadian
technology community.  I'd love to see a bit of the dynamic in each
district.

  Signing up for http://digital-copyright.ca is easy.  It's a Drupal
site with the OpenID stuff enabled.  Register at
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/user/register , and it will send an
email to verify your account.  Click on the verification URL, and then
you can post comments to any existing article.  After I read comments
which clearly indicate you are a real person, I increase the access
level to be able to post without moderation.  If you want to post
directly (your own blog on that site), send me an email.

  Many people don't like to have to remember a password for yet
another site.  If you are an OpenID user, add your URL via "My
account" (menu on right) and then "OpenID identities".  If you don't
think you are an OpenID user, then check out
http://openid.net/get-an-openid/ as you likely already are and didn't
know it.  Anyone with a Gmail or other Google account can enable a
Google Profile and use that URL (Go to http://google.com/profiles/me
to find yours).

--

-- 
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
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Russell McOrmond | 30 Mar 2011 23:53
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Fwd: Asking questions of candidates during the election.

Forwarding here, with the hope this community can be active during the
election as well.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Russell McOrmond <russellmcormond <at> gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 5:52 PM
Subject: Asking questions of candidates during the election.

(Copying to the Canada-wide DCC and the KWLug discussion forums.  Hope
cross-posting won't cause a problem.)

 A discussion thread started in the Kitchener-Waterloo LUG mailing
list after Bill C-32 died that included discussions about asking
questions of candidates.  There are of course different forums for
this, including asking at all candidates debates, at the door when
candidates come by, or as a survey sent to them in email (Or as I have
done in the past, both email and printouts dropped off at campaign
office).

Quick reminder of past
-----------------------------

 In the 2008 election there was Michael Geist's Copyright Pledge that
many candidates signed onto:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3445/125/

 In 2006 CIPPIC had a series of questions
http://www.cippic.ca/en/projects-cases/election-2006/ , based on the
questions they asked in 2004
http://www.cippic.ca/index.php?page=election2004q .  We were
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Russell McOrmond | 18 Feb 2011 18:23
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How's my driving? CLUE policy coordinator

I sent something similar to the following to a few forums, hoping to
open conversations about the policy summary we have for copyright as
well as getting endorsements for that summary and for the petitions.

If you are a member of a LUG, could you forward this into the general
discussion list?

---cut---

Every once in a while I like to re-introduce myself to fellow
Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) developers and users.  I'm
the policy coordinator for CLUE: Canada's association for Open Source
http://cluecan.ca/policy/

The area of policy that I have been most active in is federal
copyright law.  I have been attending almost all of the Bill C-32
committee hearings in person, posting my thoughts about each meeting
to http://billc32.ca/com

I don't know when I will be invited to speak in front of the
committee, but I want to ensure that I am representing FLOSS
developers and users well when I do.

If you haven't seen our copyright policy summary, it is at
http://www.cluecan.ca/policy/copyright

If you like it, consider trying to convince your local LUG or other
FLOSS associated group to endorse it.  There are also two petitions
that CLUE has endorsed that you may consider having your association
endorse, and possibly coordinate collecting signatures.
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Russell McOrmond | 6 Feb 2011 20:08
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Technology policy update + How many people does CLUE represent?


   Interesting week for telecommunications policy, whether you are 
following Usage Based Billing (#UBB) or wireless competition with the 
WIND/Globalive decision.

   Hopefully the government will quickly table legislation to deal with 
the competition issues behind these two issues.  In the case of UBB my 
problem (and I suspect many CLUE members) is not with UBB per-se, but 
with the government-granted monopoly provider of the "last mile" 
connections to our homes being able to impose a business model on 
competitors.  In the case of the Globalive decision, I suspect the 
technical community can separate the need for appropriate regulation in 
this sector from ownership issues, given it seems antiquated to worry 
about the nationality of executives in this century.

   I wrote about both these issues in more detail at http://BillC32.ca/5281

   My focus as policy coordinator remains with Copyright given Bill C-32 
is currently having hearings, and is a place where there is actual 
legislation to discuss.  I have been attending (and live tweeting 
http://twitter.com/russellmcormond) most of the meetings since they 
started, and posting my thoughts after each http://BillC32.ca/com .

   A group of backers of collective societies released a Joint statement 
http://c32jointstatement.ca/ on Thursday claiming that it was "Supported 
by nearly 90 organizations representing more than 600,000 creators and 
copyright owners".  I know for a fact that they haven't polled their 
members as many of us are in contact with (or overlap with) people who 
are members of these groups who they claim to speak on behalf of.
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Russell McOrmond | 1 Jan 2011 01:32
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Discussing Copyright related policy for 2010


   Earlier this afternoon I posted a blog article 
http://www.cluecan.ca/node/1194 discussing some of the things that have 
happened this year in Copyright that CLUE folks would want to know about.

   There is one section that may be controversial or deserve some 
discussion, so I thought I would copy it here to start that discussion.

-----------

Extension of existing private copying regime to devices

I believe this is a hard one for our community as it forces us to 
recognize priorities.

As a community most of us are opposed opposed to a system which makes 
technology more expensive, and that subsidizes unrelated business 
interests. When the Conservative party held a press conference in 
Ottawa's Rideau Center and then later launched a radio ad, many in our 
community were cheering.

While it seems that the Conservatives are on our side, the policies that 
are in C-32 say something quite different. Each of the reasons party a 
representative gave for opposing a levy on devices applies far more to 
non-owner locks on devices than it does to the levy. The damage caused 
by non-owner locks to the Canadian technology sector and the interests 
of Canadian technology owners is orders of magnitude worse than the harm 
of the levy.

We need to recognize that even if we agree with the Conservatives about
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