For sustainable development

For the fourth consecutive year individuals and organizations from all corners of Quebec join together for the Quebec Free Software Week.

A thank-you to Michael Geist for blogging about a revision of MOPOP.

Thanks to a reader for pointing out the the Canadian Intellectual Property Office is currently reviewing several chapters from its Manual of Patent Office Practice .  Chapters subject to review include those covering software patents and biotechnology, matters of interest to the open source and scientific communities. CIPO provides details on submitting comments here.

There is an alphabet soup of acronyms people use when talking about some of the controversies around copyright related issues. While learning the acronyms are hard enough, we also have to deal with the fact that different communities are using the terms in different ways. I have had the opportunity to interact with technical, legal and law making communities and will try to make sense out of a few most often heard acronyms.

As we hear more and more about DRM and other similar technologies, we encounter the need for certificates. Since this is the case, we, in supporting FL/OSS, should be aware that there is a Certificate Authority that is working within the movement. This is CAcert.org.

Michael Geist has an article about how Canadian Press is reporting that the introduction of a copyright reform bill is imminent.

Expect to see a lot of Graham Henderson misinformation (lies? Maybe he doesn't understand technology enough to know better) about DRM, and the false claim that there is a need to attack the tangible property rights of Canadians in order to protect the business models of specific copyright holders.

"I've often said, if you've bought it, you're my best friend, knock yourself out," Henderson said of the music his members sell. "You've just bought a valuable piece of property, and you want to be able to use it to the fullest extent you can - without cheating the system."

I was interviewed for a CHUT radio show called L'heure est au libre that airs from 11:00-11:30 on Mondays. The archive for the show aired Monday January 8, 2007 are online.

CLUE presented our copyright policy summary to officials at Heritage Canada on December 1, 2006. The proposals include a support for a living "Fair Use" model, as well as an opposition to laws which protect specific brands of technology rather than protecting creativity.