International Human Rights Day reminds us about Free Software

Free_Software4The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit organisation with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users.

As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies who might seek to restrict us.

The Free Software Foundation is working to secure freedom for computer users by promoting the development and use of free (as in freedom) software and documentation — particularly the GNU operating system — and by campaigning against threats to computer user freedom like Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and software patents.

FSF has sister organisations in Europe , France , Latin America and India.

Do a good thing TODAY ! Help the FSFE reach their 2015 budget goal of €420,000 by donating until December 31.

 

 

Self-organised European Citizens Initiative against TTIP, CETA & TISA

stop-ttip-generic-fbEuropean Union member states are under increasing pressure from North American business groups to open their borders to imports of genetically modified food as part of negotiations for a new Transatlantic trade deal, environmental campaigners have warned.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is being negotiated among European governments, the US and Canada, with the active participation of dozens of large businesses. It has already attracted strong criticism from democracy campaigners, who say it could mean the European Union could have to open the National Health Service further to private companies, and complaints against large companies could be treated in secret without proper legal recourse.

The potential impacts on food safety are less apparent as the negotiations are being conducted without public consultation. Progress on signing the partnership is expected to be hastened later this year when new EU commissioners are appointed.

The European commission has strongly denied that the partnership would allow North American companies to circumvent EU food standards, particularly with regard to genetic modification. A spokesman for the commission told the Guardian: “TTIP will not change the way we regulate GMOs [genetically modified organisms] in Europe. EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht stressed that publically many times. The EU has its red lines in the negotitations and the GMOs is one of them.”

However, documents from various US and Canadian government agencies and business trade bodies suggest strong pressure is being brought to bear from US industries to allow GM products and other foods into EU markets that would violate the EU’s current standards, in the name of free trade. The US Department of Agriculture and Foreign Agricultural Service has explicitly identified “the EU’s non-tariff barriers to US agricultural products”, specifying in particular “long delays in reviews of biotech products [that] create barriers to US exports of grain and oil seed products”. The term biotech is generally used to refer to GM products.

The European commission says that the EU would not be forced to allow imports of GM foods under the TTIP deal. “Will the EU be forced to change its laws on GMOs? No, it will not. Basic laws, like those relating to GMOs or which are there to protect human life and health, animal health and welfare, or environment and consumer interests will not be part of the negotiations,” according to a Q&A on the EU’s website. (Source: The Guardian)

You can sign the petitions against TTIP here:

More informations regarding these topics can be found at:

V slovenskem jeziku :

 

Computing that benefits humanity

WCGI am a long time member of the World Community Grid (WCG) an effort to create the world’s largest public computing grid to tackle scientific research projects that benefit humanity. Launched on November 16, 2004, it is funded and operated by IBM with client software currently available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and FreeBSD operating systems. Using the idle time of computers around the world, World Community Grid’s research projects have analyzed aspects of the human genome, HIV, dengue, muscular dystrophy, cancer, influenza, rice crop yields, and clean energy. The organization has so far partnered with over 400 other companies and organizations to assist in its work and has over 73,000 active registered users as of June 2013. If you access a computer system which doesn’t process anything while you aren’t working on it, you could donate idle time to this project. If this might sound complicated for you to begin with, I will be glad to assist you with some guidance.

Museum night

One day in a year 90% of Slovenian museums open their exhibitions without admission. The museums and galleries are opened from early morning until midnight. This year I went to see the photographic exhibitions at Museum for Architecture and Design which held selection of photographs from international art collection Junij. Secondly I went to the Jakopic Gallery where they had the collection of photographers who were the members of the famous Magnum Photos. The collection was called Magnum’s First: The Face of Time. It  is the very first group exhibition of Magnum Photos which is considered a photographic myth of the 20th century, time and again inspiring new generations of photographers. Thirdly I went to the National museum of Contemporary History where they have the collection of retrocomputing. The guide gave us a really good tour around computers and mainframes and I also took some photos. The interesting thing was computer developement in Yugoslavia back in the 1980s, when the license from Digital was obtained from the United Stated and machines were branded under the name of the company Iskra Delta, so you can see PDP’s with additional hardware which was made at Iskra.

New Free Software mirrors

I set up two new software mirrors. One being GNU Linux-Libre kernel, a project to maintain and publish 100% Free distributions of Linux, suitable for use in Free System Distributions. Second being the ISO mirror for Trisquel GNU/Linux distribution. Both mirrors are located in California, United States. Server space is kindly sponsored by Laszlo.

Richard M. Stallman in Ljubljana

On Saturday 21th of April, Richard M. Stallman, the founder of Free Software Foundation visited Slovenia and held an excellent lecture about “Copyright versus Community in the Age of Computer Networks” (videorecording here) at the Museum of Modern Art. I admire/respect the work that he has done over so many years in promoting and battling for the Free Software against the giant corporations, which try to limit the user rights and privacy. It was a great honour for me to be able to attend his lecture and speak a few words with him.

Small work is big shit

“Small work is big shit” was the leading topic of the Student protest in Ljubljana, held in front of the parliament building on 19th of May 2010. The student organisation wanted to accomplish additional free benefits for schoolars and students in Slovenia. By the way Slovenias school system is still free of charge for regular students, they also get free food in schools and discounted coupons for food in the restaurants. Now they were after additional free benefits, like unlimited honorary work for students. By the way many students earn a lot more than regular workers in Slovenia, since the employer doesn’t need to pay taxes when employing a student. And the directors of the firms where they provide work to students earn big money from it. Well the protest in the main city has excalated and schoolars and students started to throw bricks into the windows and facade of the parliament, they also started up the fire as seen on Youtube’s video. Slovenia doesn’t recall any protest being so extreme since the end of 10-day Slovenian war in the 1990’s.