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Dear opensource representatives!

Traditionally, the german ministry of the interior has been taking patronage
for the german LinuxTag (LinuxDay).
Some people think this is a good way to help spreading opensource software.

However, the current minister of the interior has been propagating the total
control over digital communication and the decrease in personal rights as
guaranteed in the german constitution.

Recently he proposed a governmental trojan horse «Bundestrojaner» that should
be developed by the police to collect data from (also innocent) people to
allow the prevention of crime.

From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w.….chäuble ):

«In March 2007, federal interior minister Schäuble declared in an interview,
that in his view the application of presumption of innocence should not be
applied, when there was a chance to prevent acts of terrorism that way;
however, the assumption of innocence is granted in article 20 of the german
constitution.»

So, to sum it up: For many people in Germany Wolfgang Schäuble stands for the
total governmental surveillance and seems to act as an enemy of some human
rights, such as freedom of speech. For a lot of people he is also considered
to be against the spirit of opensource (even if he propagate the usage of it
as being cheap).

To get an impression of that you may want to google for «Stasi 2.0″. (To know
what Stasi is, please read http://en.wikipedia.org/w.….ki/Stasi )

That’s why I think he is no capable patron of the LinuxDay in Berlin.

There have been sent a lot of emails recently to the organisation of the
LinuxTag, so they felt the need to make a statement. You may read it here (in
german):
http://www.linuxtag.org/2.….aft.html

In short they state that the focus of the Linux Day is to spread opensource
software and not to discuss politics and that there is a long tradition in
cooperation with the interior ministry. So they are currently not willing to
revoke the patronage.

If you want to keep damage from the reputation of the opensource movement,
I suggest to inform yourself about the issue and communicate with the
representatives of your community participating in the LinuxTag 2007,
especially the speakers, to ask the LinuxDay to either revoke the patronage
or cancel the participation.

You may contact the organization of the LinuxDay here:
http://www.linuxtag.org/2.….akt.html

Here are the schedules:

BSD-day
http://www.linuxtag.org/2.….day.html

Debian-day
http://www.linuxtag.org/2.….day.html

Conferences
http://www.linuxtag.org/2.….onf.html

You may have noticed that my english is not the best and so I thank you for
the patience to decipher what I meant to say.

Yes it’s a political issue and yes it is specific to germany but I think the
situation in germany is becoming a «special» one, where the human rights
guaranteed  in german constitution need to be defended against the attacs of
the government and Mr. Schäuble is leading these attacs.

Please discuss this.

Kind Regards,

M.R. Arns

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Answer from Alan Cox:

> Yes it’s a political issue and yes it is specific to germany but I think the
> situation in germany is becoming a «special» one, where the human rights
> guaranteed  in german constitution need to be defended against the attacs of
> the government and Mr. Schäuble is leading these attacs.

Its hardly a specific German issue. They along with the UK and one or two
other dubious US «allies» have been trying to push this sort of crap all
over europe, including in the EU itself.

I think it would be quite effective to ask the speakers to read about
the issue as you have done and then poke fun at it and at him as well as
raise awareness that way.

Alan

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Marc Rene Arns wrote:

> May I post your answer to a german website?
> I think this could help…

By all means.

                Error Subversive Citizen Detected

                Bunderstrojan.exe: file not found

Alan

Aber in der Frage, inwieweit Softwareentwicklung politisch sein muss, gibt es sicherlich im BSD und Linux Lager unterschiedliche Ansichten, wiewohl die Praxis der Aktiven öfter näher beieinanderliegt, als man annehmen würde.

Wo Schäuble draufsteht ist Diktatur drin. Von mir kriegen die keine Unterstützung.

Durch einen Boykott des LinuxTags würden «am ehesten die vielen freien Projekte getroffen werden, die unter Einsatz erheblicher Anstrengungen in ihrer Freizeit die Präsentation ihrer Ergebnisse vorbereitet haben».

heise

Tja Pech gehabt kann man da nur sagen, wenn man sich dazu zuvor keine Gedanken machte. Wie auch schon bei der Cebit triffts letztenendes den Veranstalter …

Die Redner können und werden sicherlich mehr Druck ausüben auf den Linuxtag und es trifft ihn wesentlich härter, wenn die Redner drohen, nicht zu kommen.

BTW: erinnert mich an das «erwachsen werden» der Grünen. Dieser Ausverkauf des OpenSource-Gedankens ist fast noch frustrierender als die Aktionen des Herrn Schäuble, da es zeigt, wie wenig Widerstand zu erwarten ist.