French Government Lobbied to Ban Free Software
 

The French are as usual F..ing mad. I'd expect this sort of crap to
come out of the US legislators

http://www.fsffrance.org/news/article2005-11-25.en.html

Friday November 18th, 2005, French Department of Culture. SNEP and
SCPP have told Free Software authors: "You will be required to change
your licenses." SACEM add: "You shall stop publishing free software,"
and warn they are ready "to sue free software authors who will keep on
publishing source code" should the "VU/SACEM/BSA/FA Contents
Department"[1] bill proposal pass in the Parliament.

Re: French Government Lobbied to Ban Free Software
 

Mutley wrote:

> The French are as usual F..ing mad. I'd expect this sort of crap to
> come out of the US legislators
>
> http://www.fsffrance.org/news/article2005-11-25.en.html
>
> Friday November 18th, 2005, French Department of Culture. SNEP and
> SCPP have told Free Software authors: "You will be required to change
> your licenses." SACEM add: "You shall stop publishing free software,"
> and warn they are ready "to sue free software authors who will keep on
> publishing source code" should the "VU/SACEM/BSA/FA Contents
> Department"[1] bill proposal pass in the Parliament.

The above snippet is taken a tad out of context though. The objection by
parliament is not of all open source software, only of open source software
that is used in tools that are used to infringe copyrights.

Allistar.

Re: French Government Lobbied to Ban Free Software
 

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 21:58:03 +1300, someone purporting to be Allistar
didst scrawl:

> Mutley wrote:
*SNIP*
> The above snippet is taken a tad out of context though. The objection by
> parliament is not of all open source software, only of open source software
> that is used in tools that are used to infringe copyrights.
>
So Linux and the BSDs, basically. Quite a few people have woken up to the
fact that most copy-protection schemes don't effect non-MS/Apple operating
systems and are making use of this to rip copies of their CDs. This is,
technically, breaching copyright in at least some states of the EU.

Also, that would make deCSS illegal in France, since it's OSS software
that circumvents the crap protection on DVDs and allows them to be copied
(amongst other heinous acts).

--
Matthew Poole
"Don't use force. Get a bigger hammer."

Re: French Government Lobbied to Ban Free Software
 

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:33:41 +1000, Mutley wrote:

> The French are as usual F..ing mad. I'd expect this sort of crap to
> come out of the US legislators
>
> http://www.fsffrance.org/news/article2005-11-25.en.html
>
> Friday November 18th, 2005, French Department of Culture. SNEP and SCPP
> have told Free Software authors: "You will be required to change your
> licenses." SACEM add: "You shall stop publishing free software," and
> warn they are ready "to sue free software authors who will keep on
> publishing source code" should the "VU/SACEM/BSA/FA Contents
> Department"[1] bill proposal pass in the Parliament.

Must have their collective snouts in the proprietary trough.
Something big from the dark side is pulling strings maybe.

BrianM

Re: French Government Lobbied to Ban Free Software
 

Matthew Poole wrote:

> On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 21:58:03 +1300, someone purporting to be Allistar
> didst scrawl:
>
>> Mutley wrote:
> *SNIP*
>> The above snippet is taken a tad out of context though. The objection by
>> parliament is not of all open source software, only of open source
>> software that is used in tools that are used to infringe copyrights.
>>
> So Linux and the BSDs, basically. Quite a few people have woken up to the
> fact that most copy-protection schemes don't effect non-MS/Apple operating
> systems and are making use of this to rip copies of their CDs. This is,
> technically, breaching copyright in at least some states of the EU.
>
> Also, that would make deCSS illegal in France, since it's OSS software
> that circumvents the crap protection on DVDs and allows them to be copied
> (amongst other heinous acts).

What they're saying is that if you write code designed to break copyright,
they would rather you didn't release that code "into the wild".

Allistar.