[Ubuntu-SG] Shoud we engage IPOS ? : Previously: Should we "Say No to Piracy"?

[C David Rigby]

On Wed, 2009-06-24 at 08:01 +0800, suhaw koh wrote:
> Hi CDR,
> 
> 
> Like I mentioned in my email yesterday evening, I am agreeable to not
> joining HIP.  That was a good to have, but not essential.
> 
> 
> The reason why this whole debate started was because of the Schools
> Project.  If we want to go to any School, we will have to address a
> key concern of theirs, namely that our Project promotes lawfulness
> among the student participants.  We cannot hope to get any school to
> admit us if we are going to tell their students to ignore IP laws.
> 
> 
> And a key to achieving that is to get IPOS on our side.  If we can get
> IPOS to give us their stamp of approval, the schools will not give us
> a hard time on this issue.
> 
> 
> Is there an alternative to IPOS ?  Yes, but not as desireable.  Find a
> qualified lawyer to join this project and overcome FUD on the part of
> school administrators and assure them that using Open Source software
> is not illegal.  Then get this lawyer to conduct a session to the
> students on what's legal and what's not.
> 
> 
> How is the IPOS option preferable ?  First, IPOS is much more
> authoritative than any lawyer on what is legal and what's not.
>  Schools can doubt a lawyer but not IPOS.  Second, it is IPOS
> objective and role to promote IP laws awareness anyway, so what we are
> asking them to do is very much in line with what they want to do
> anyway.
> 
> 
> I can understand why you may not want to join HIP because they are
> filled with Open Source-unfriendly organisations.  But do you have any
> objection to us engaging IPOS ?
> 
> 

I do not care who else is part of HIP in terms of their FOSS
friendliness or lack there of. I relish playing the role of agent
provocateur, and that would seem to be an ideal venue for such. I agree
with you that being involved as part of HIP would help to make our
voices heard. 

I DO object to TUSG joining HIP for the reason I gave, which is that it
is too off-topic for TUSG & our limited resources.

I understand and appreciate the value of joining HIP and engaging IPOS
when it comes to our proposed educational program. I counter-propose
that the development of the educational program should be pushed up to
the FOSA level. The advantages gained are:

	* Imprimatur of a Registered Society
	* Exposure of the project to a wider audience
	* A larger membership base from which to recruit participants

At that point, the project would no longer be limited to Ubuntu. Looking
at your list of proposed topics, that is already the case. Most of the
topics involve FOSS applications and are distro-agnostic. To avoid
confusion, the OS presented to the students should not be varied, and as
the the School Project Guy you would almost certainly be able to insist
that Ubuntu be the delivery platform (we might lose Fedora and SuSe
evangelists, but oh well).

I am working on the FOSA site today. When we the FOSA admins are happy
with it, we will be actively recruiting community participation there.
I'll report back to TUSG when that is the case. At that point, please
consider to take the proposal to the FOSA membership, many of whom are
very active but not visible in the TUSG group.

> Cheers.
> 
> suhaw
> 
> 

Cheers
CDR