RunMe DorkBot CityCamp 2004

Aarhus, Denmark, Aug. 25–27

You are cordially invited to leave your tents and sleeping bags safely at home and join us in
Aarhus, Denmark for the Runme Dorkbot citycamp 2004. From the 25th-27th August, Aarhus will be
filled with 'people doing strange things with software', as well as more traditional campfire
activities such as eating, drinking, talking, socialising, showing off and relaxing together.

Russia Claims New Missle Developments Nullify ABM Systems

ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 28 March: Russia's latest projects in the ballistic weapons field,
which allow for manoeuvring in terms of altitude and course, are an "almost
revolutionary step", according to a senior source in the Russian Defence
Ministry. The source clarified that he was talking of the experiments
conducted during the latest large-scale exercises in Russia. "This is a
serious step that really does change the philosophy of military-strategic
interaction," the source said. According to the expert, "the existence of
such a weapons system nullifies any anti-missile defence system".

James Lindenschmidt writes:

"From Virtual Commons to Virtual Enclosures"

James Landenschmidt

This article provides an analysis of the structure and the value of the virtual commons as it is transformed into the virtual enclosures by capital. It was written to be informative to both the free software community and political activists.

This article is available in both HTML and PDF format.

"Dark Nets and Social Software"

Robert Kaye

[At the recent O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in
San Diego, CA, Robert Kaye lead a talk on Next Generation File Sharing
with Social Software. For those who were able to attend, this essay builds
upon that session. And if you missed the talk all together, you can now
get up to speed.]

Open file sharing systems like Kazaa welcome everyone on the net and enjoy
a broad selection of content. The selection is so vast that Cory Doctorow
calls it "The largest library ever created." (Personally, I'd call it the
"largest and messiest library ever created," but that is another essay
entirely.) However, this vast selection comes with a significant risk
attached — outsider attackers who want to stop you from sharing files and
would like to throw you in jail or pilfer your college fund.

An anonymous coward writes:

Mondo2000 alum R.U. Sirius has posted a fascinating interview with author and boingboing editor Cory Doctorow.

"Notes on the State of Networking"

Geert Lovink and Florian Schneider, February 2004

No longer the society, the political party or even the movement, networks
are the emerging form of organization of our time. By marching through the
institutions the idea of networking has lost its mysterious and subversive
character. Sandpapered by legions of consultants, supervisors, and
sociologists, as a buzzword networking superseded the latest fashions of
sustainability, outsourcing, and lean organization.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Floss and the Crisis: Foreigner in a Free Land?" 1
Martin Hardie *

Published in the Sarai Reader 4
http://www.sarai.net/journal/reader4.html

“... capitalism (or any other name that one wants to give to the process that today dominates world history) was not only directed toward the expropriation of productive activity, but also principally toward the alienation of language itself, of the very linguistic and communicative nature of humans, of that logos which one of Hericlitus's fragments identified as the Common. The extreme form of the expropriation of the Common is the spectacle, that is the politics we live in. But this also means that in the spectacle our linguistic nature comes back to us inverted. This is why (precisely because what is being expropriated is the very possibility of the common good) the violence of the spectacle is so destructive; but for the same reason the spectacle retains something like a positive possibility that can be used against it." 2

Uncle Fluffy writes:

Some folks I met recently are putting on this event...

Penguin Day, March 28, 2004

The first-ever Penguin Day on March 28, 2004 brings together free
and open source software (F/OSS) developers and non-profit technology
staff
for a day of learning and conversation.



Penguin Day convenes stakeholders in the development and adoption
of F/OSS for non-profits to frankly address the
range of challenges in scaling capacity, as well as celebrate strengths
and successes of open source in the nonprofit sector.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"... nabbed from Groklaw.... the original from Groklaw contains some other acknowledgements to those who produced the transcript. You canj find it (and 422 comments!) here.

Eben Moglen's Harvard Speech: A Transcript

Contributed by: PJ

[If accuracy is vital, do check with the Harvard video. If you wish to hear the talk to verify it or just to enjoy it, here it is. I am continuing to edit, so if you see any errors, can you please help me out by letting me know? I just didn't want you to have to wait for perfection on my part, as that might be a long wait indeed.

Moglen makes reference to two legal terms, dicta and holding, which I'll explain briefly, so you can follow his thought. Dicta, the plural of dictum, is, according to my law dictionary, "a statement, remark, or observation in a judicial opinion not necessary for the decision of the case. Dictum differs from the holding in that it is not binding on the courts in subsequent cases." You can extrapolate holding's meaning from the definition of dicta. So, with that introduction, here is the transcript.

"We're Writing Too Much Code":

Bill Gates Speaks About Context, Abstract Code, and Software's Future at
Carnegie Mellon University"

Nathan Martin

Feb 25, 2004, 11:30 AM -- Fifteen minutes ago I was released from a lecture at Carnegie Mellon by the
super-billionaire Bill Gates. I thought it apt that I compose this series of
notes using Microsoft Word on my office copy of Microsoft Windows XP and
send it off as an email using Microsoft Outlook. Unfortunately the
ubiquitous computing that Bill touted was all branded Microsoft.