[lug] SSSCA to make all open source software illegal

[J. Wayde Allen]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2001, John Karns wrote:

> On Mon, 22 Oct 2001, J. Wayde Allen said:
> 
> > Linux has been figuring rather prominently for several years in the
> > free engineering rags, especially in the area of embedded computing.
> 
> Unfortunately though (at least in this case, as a whole) the geek
> community doesn't tend to be too politically active.

Not too sure I completely agree.  I suppose that this is a fairly relative
situation.  I've been around much less politically active groups.  My
feeling is that the Linux community is learning to be fairly proactive.  
For example, at last months pre-meeting gathering a good number of people
were talking about having written letters to their congressmen.  I find
that in and of itself rather unusual.  Most people in most groups simple
grumble and complain.  These people had actually done something.

Let's see there are 405 subscribers to this list.  If we all wrote a
letter to our congressmen there is a fairly decent chance that we'd be
heard.  Let's see, the contact info people would need are:

   http://clerkweb.house.gov/107/olm107.php3#COLORADO
   http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html
   http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cfm
   http://allard.senate.gov/contactme/index.cfm

There is also an on-line petition you can sign at 

   http://www.petitiononline.com/SSSCA/petition.html

However, I'm a bit skeptical about the effectiveness of on-line petitions.

> What we need is the corporate suit types raising the roof about this.

That would certainly help.  Those here on the list who have contacted some
of the corporate entities to help make them aware of the problem are
probably doing a good thing.  The tricky part of this sort of thing is
knowing who to actually contact, and knowing just how hard to push.  This
is one place where I think the Linux community often fails.  (Sometimes
the backlash from pushing too hard is worse than doing nothing at
all.  You've probably had someone demand more of you than you've thought
was reasonable before - same thing.  That is why it helps to get to know
the people you want to influence.)

Also, just because you don't hear anything about this via the regular
press doesn't mean that they aren't aware, and that they aren't as you
say, raising the roof.  They just might be.  I see this sort of thing from
companies everyday on many topics you have probably never heard
of.  (Maybe I'm just a bit close to the fire since my boss's boss's boss's
boss is the president.)

- Wayde
  (wallen at lug.boulder.co.us)