Showing posts with label petition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label petition. Show all posts

24 January 2011

Won't Someone Think of the Trees?

The concept of the commons derives from common land. This still lives on in England, in the form of commons - like Clapham Common - and as national forests that all can use. Against that background, I am naturally appalled that the coalition government proposes selling off our forests in order to raise a few pennies to throw into the bottomless pit of our National Debt.

The campaigning site 38 Degrees if fighting this with a petition, and is also encouraging Brits to write to their MPs. Here's what I've just sent using WriteToThem:

I am writing to you about the proposed sell-off of Britain's forests.

Although I broadly agree that our currently very onerous national debt needs to be reduced, it is important that efforts to achieve this do not result in rash or irreversible actions. I believe that selling off our forests would be such an action.

If forests are sold, they will be bought with a view to profit maximisation. This will inevitably lead to felling and destruction of habitats up to the limit of the law (and probably beyond if buyers think they can get away with it).

Indeed, it is quite likely that many buyers will be from overseas, particularly in those countries that have large cash reserves. They will have no compunction in destroying the environmental resources of another country, since they wish to extract the greatest profit in the shortest time possible, and will certainly not be overly worried about local effects caused by their actions.

Once damaged, these resources will take hundreds of years to regenerate, and may well be lost for ever. At a time when the environment is under pressure on many fronts – not least rising population and climate change – it would be foolish to reduce national holdings of this key assets. If anything, the Government should be *increasing* the extent of national forests.

As well as providing valuable resources, they offer Britons a much-needed refuge from the pressures of modern life. Again, if forests are sold off, access is bound to be reduced (not least by felling activities); this will lead to a general loss of the quality of life – hardly something that the Government should be encouraging.

For these reasons, I urge you not to support these sell-off plans. I would be grateful if you could please convey my concerns to the ministers concerned, and to ask them to reconsider.

If you care about the commons - or just like trees - please consider sending a brief email to your MP.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

08 January 2010

Help Stop EU Software Patents – Again

A few years back, there was a fierce battle between those wishing to lock down software with patents, and those who wanted to keep copyright as the main protection for computer code. Thankfully, the latter won. Here's what the BBC wrote at the time....

On Open Enterprise blog.

11 February 2009

Yes He Can (Use Open Source)

Following the change of adminstration in the US, many are hoping for a more, er, open mind to open source. Some have decided to make a direct appeal via an open letter to the President on newly-created blog (a slightly strange choice of platform)....

On Open Enterprise blog.

17 December 2008

Stop Software Patents in Europe

I've written a number of times about the unsatisfactory state of software patents in Europe – theoretically forbidden, but in practice, frequently sneaking in by the back door. Now there's a petition calling for greater legal clarity....

On Open Enterprise blog.

01 October 2008

Just Say "No"....

...to 42 days. (Via Boing Boing.)

17 October 2007

WIPO to Wipe Itself Out?

I've written before that WIPO needs to change to reflect the new realities of intellectual monopolies, but it seems the organisation wants to go even further by melting down completely:

Hundreds of employees at the World Intellectual Property Organization, a prominent United Nations agency, have signed a petition calling on WIPO Director General Kamil Idris to put the organisation’s interests before his own in addressing allegations that he misrepresented his age on official documents and possibly engaged in other untoward activities. Idris is under pressure to step down by countries that see him as having lost the ability to lead the organisation.

First the World Bank, now WIPO...who's next?

25 June 2007

Nooxml

Not, as you might think, an Aztec god....

13 June 2007

Dear Wicked WIPO

WIPO is at it again, trying to bring in a big, bad broadcasting treaty:

In 2006, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was inches away from finalizing a treaty that would have crippled Internet broadcasting. Called the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty, it gave traditional broadcasters and cablecasters new copyright-like rights over their transmissions, including control over Internet retransmissions of broadcasts and cablecasts. Creating these rights is not only unnecessary to incentivize new forms of online communication such as podcasting and videoblogging, but will also inhibit the growth of these new citizen-generated media.

...

In an astounding turnaround last year, WIPO Member States told the WIPO Secretariat to rewrite the Treaty and make it focus more narrowly on signal protection. Thanks to the efforts of technology companies, independent podcasters, and activists, the delegates agreed that the treaty shouldn't be premised on creating new rights, which would lead to more litigation that would stifle new technologies and harm citizen-run Web broadcasting activities. Instead, any new treaty should be based on protection of broadcast signals. This was a huge victory for podcasters, their fans, and innovative business that are pushing video on the web.

Then, in May of this year, WIPO released a "new" draft of the treaty that looks disconcertingly like the old one. Sure, there was some tinkering around the edges, but the Treaty still gives broadcasters and cablecasters new exclusive rights, and it still covers transmission over the Internet. Worse, it includes an expanded technological protection measure provision that could ban any unauthorised "device or system capable of decrypting an encrypted broadcast" - which means all modern personal computers!

Don't let them get away with it: sign the Dear WIPO petition.

04 June 2007

You'd Be Nuts Not To...

Bill Hooker points out that there is an important petition to establish a self-archiving open access mandate for Brazilian research circulating - and that anyone may sign it. So why not join in (Bill's post has a translation)?

05 April 2007

Microsoft Begs the World to Beg; I Beg to Differ

It would have been more appropriate had this come out on April 1st:

If you agree that Open XML should be approved as an ISO standard please sign this petition, which we will send to the Chairman of the British Standards Institute to demonstrate broad support for this initiative in the UK.

Yours faithfully,

Nick McGrath
Director of Platform Strategy
Microsoft Ltd

This is basically trying to strong-arm the BSI into supporting Microsoft's pseudo-standard by soliciting the public's help through the following statements:

• Ecma Open XML was developed through the collaborative efforts of leading companies such as Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, The British Library, Essilor, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil, Toshiba and the US Library of Congress.
• Ecma Open XML is backward compatible with billions of archived documents held by the private and public sectors.
• Any company can freely implement and develop innovative products using Ecma Open XML
• Ecma Open XML enables interoperability, accommodates multiple languages and cultures, and supports technologies that enable people with disabilities to use computing devices.

So, let's just take a look at some of these, shall we?

First, note that Microsoft Open XML has suddenly morphed into that terribly neutral and official-looking Ecma Open XML: who could possibly have anything against that?

• Ecma Open XML was developed through the collaborative efforts of leading companies such as Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, The British Library, Essilor, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil, Toshiba and the US Library of Congress.

It would be interesting to see what proportion of the code these contributed. I'd bet it was something like 99.99% Microsoft's work. This was why it was foolish for institutions like the British Library to lend their name: it was bound to be hijacked in this way.

• Ecma Open XML is backward compatible with billions of archived documents held by the private and public sectors.

Sorry, Nick, that's a bug, not a feature: backward compatibility has led to elephantiasis in the documentation - all 6000 pages of it - which makes it effectively unusable for anyone except Microsoft. What a coincidence.

• Any company can freely implement and develop innovative products using Ecma Open XML

See the previous comment. And oh yes, we know that Microsoft really loves to share its proprietary standards: just ask the European Commission, or Novell, for example.

• Ecma Open XML enables interoperability, accommodates multiple languages and cultures, and supports technologies that enable people with disabilities to use computing devices.

Er, interoperability with what - itself? There will never be a full independent implementation of Microsoft's file format (see above, again). Or perhaps Nick was thinking of interoperability with other XML-based office standards: unfortunately, the way those 6000 pages define Microsoft's format, true interoperability seems a merely theoretical prospect. And note the cunning last line - "supports technologies that enable people with disabilities to use computing devices" - which implies that this is something special. That was true in the past, but things move on, Nick, and ODF offers it too, now.

Given the fact that the company emphasises how keen it is to respond to users' wishes, what I want to know is why there isn't somewhere where we can petition Microsoft to drop its format entirely, and simply switch to the real open office standard, OpenDocument Format, which more and more governments and companies are supporting.

Now that's something I'd sit up and beg for. (Via The Reg.)

04 February 2007

Help the Fight for an Open BBC

I seem to be writing lots of posts asking people for help with petitions and wotnot: sorry, here's another one. This time its about the BBC’s on-demand proposals.

I've only skim-read through the documents - the full proposals and the provisional conclusions - but it's clear there are two very important issues of openness involved. One is the obvious problem of DRM, the other, related, is support for non-Microsoft platforms. I suspect that it will be impossible to get people to do without the former at the moment, but I'm reasonably optimistic we can get them to commit to support for other platforms.

I urge anyone eligible - which essentially means fee-paying Brits - to comment before the deadline of March 28.

31 January 2007

Conservation Commons

A little while back I was urging you to sign a petition calling for open access in the European Union (you did sign, didn't you?). Now here's another worthy cause, asking for open access to environmental information - the ultimate, double commons:

Principles of the Conservation Commons

Open Access: The Conservation Commons promotes free and open access to data, information and knowledge for all conservation purposes.

Mutual Benefit: The Conservation Commons welcomes and encourages participants to both use these resources and to contribute data, information and knowledge.

Rights and Responsibilities: Contributors to the Conservation Commons have full right to attribution for any uses of their data, information, or knowledge, and the right to ensure that the original integrity of their contribution to the Commons is preserved. Users of the Conservation Commons are expected to comply, in good faith, with terms of uses specified by contributors.

You can sign up online. See you there. (Via Open Access News.)

17 January 2007

I Urge You to Urge EU Urgency on OA

Open access is important, but for most of us, it's hard to do much about it. So I urge you to vote for the following EU petition, whether you're in the EU or not:

I urge decision-makers at all levels in Europe to endorse the recommendations made in the Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe in full, in particular to adopt the first recommendation A1 as a matter of urgency.

(Via Open Access News.)

06 April 2006

ODF Petition Hits 10,000

I'm a big fan of the OpenDocument Fellowship - there's something very Tolkienian about it, and it's one of the best places to keep on top of developments in this important area.

One of its projects is a petition trying to persuade Microsoft to support the Open Document Format. This may be somewhat of a forlorn hope, but then they do say that a gentleman only supports lost causes.

If you wish to add your name to the 10,000 or so who have shown their gentlemanly/ladylike credentials in this way, you can do so here.