Derick Rethans - tag: politics

Letter to my MP to urge her to debate the Digital Economy Bill in parliament

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:12:00 +0000

Letter to my MP to urge her to debate the Digital Economy Bill in parliament

Thursday, March 18th 2010, 11:12 GMT

The UK House of Lords passed a controversial internet piracy bill that will have great consequences for society. Not only because it wants to disconnect file sharers, but also because of other privacy invading clauses. It is possible (likely even) that this bill will be rushed through parliament without a proper debate. I therefore wrote to my MP to urge her to properly discuss this in parliament. I am copying that letter below:

Dear Sarah Teather,

I've been following the recent developments around the Digital Economy Bill and what I read worries me deeply. This law, spearheaded by the Lord Manderson, is controversial in many ways. Now it seems possible that this bill is going to be rushed to be signed into law without a full Parliamentary debate.

There are several issues with this bill that I would like to address. First of all, the proposed US-DMCA like practices that would allow copyright holders to ask an ISP to take down content. ISPs will have no choice, but to comply with those take-down notices because it would be their legal responsibility. ISPs will have to fight out in court if they want to prove that certain content is not infringing, and obviously they will not have the inclination to do so on their customers' behalf. This makes it relatively easy for anybody to demand content taken off-line, whether they are the copyright holder or not, or even without having to prove the content is in violation.

At the same time, the Digital Economy Bill will allow the use of "orphaned works"—works for which the author is not easy to find. I am a semi-professional photographer with many images published on the Internet in various locations, some that are difficult to link me to as an author. I expect this to be even more the case for people's holiday pictures that they post to sites such as flickr and facebook. I don't want my work to be used commercially without consent, but if the Digital Economy Bill would be signed into law, corporations could use anyone's family pictures without their consent. This is of course in full contrast with other proposed clauses that criminalize copyright infringements where the copyright is owned by large (mostly not even UK) corporations.

As you can see, there are measures in this Bill that concern me, and so I think that it deserves proper scrutiny. Please don't let the government rush it through. I, and many of my peers, think it will damage schools and businesses as well as innocent people who rely on the internet because it will allow the Government to disconnect people it suspects of copyright infringement with any due process.

I am writing to you today to ask you to do all you can to ensure the Government doesn't just rush the bill through and deny us our democratic right to scrutiny and debate. I would be happy to discuss this matter with you further and provide some examples.

Yours sincerely, Derick Rethans

I have not seen a reply yet, but will update this post in case I receive one later. Please also write to your MP in case you are concerned with how this bill will affect your privacy and rights.

PDO comments

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:22:00 +0000

PDO comments

Skien, Norway

Monday, January 28th 2008, 11:22 CET

I've been quiet so far about the PDO/CLA issues because I wanted to think a bit more about it so the reply would not be an impulsive one. I am copying it here for additional comments:

I've been deliberating looking at all the comments regarding PDO2 and the CLA proposal to allow for some more thinking-before-writing. My first impression was not much unlike Pierre's though. Now that I have spend some time thinking about it, I am replying with my thoughts and comments. They are my personal thoughts on this and can not be attributed to any other entity.

First of all, it's good that some attention is give to PDO. PDO is useful, but also has many rough edges in the ways that it behaves different depending on different database connection libraries. This is highly annoying, even more because it's not really documented. Anything to improve this is good, and support from the vendors themselves definitely would help here. However, love to PDO should be given in a similar way as to the rest of PHP. I disagree, but understand, how PDO2 got started. It's not that much an issue to start with a small group to talk about certain new things, but it should have been possible for other people to join as well.

The outcome of this process is however what went into the wrong hole for me. From the start with Wez' commit to create a closed off module in our CVS repository I was skeptical. I've now seen the proposed CLA and PDO license and it seems my scepticism is justified. PHP has been an Open Source project for more than 10 years now, and I've spend a good deal of my spare time in the last 6 years on it. Never was there any need for a CLA although there were some minor IP related issues which got cleared up pretty quickly. It happens, and a CLA can not prevent this. An example here is that when one of the CLA-signed PHP developers talks at a conference with another person (that did not sign the CLA) on some PDO related issues, the ideas that this other person brings up can not be used as it's not own contribution. This effectively stops discussing relevant technical issues with peers at conferences for example. I know the CLA only talks about actually stuff that makes it in (into the spec or code), but can you really rightfully claim it your contribution if somebody else suggested it orally? Another issue here is that we can't really have a public bug tracker for PDO where people can put in patches. The PDO developers (that signed a CLA) can not even look for issues as they might be tainted with evil patches. This practise is in spirit against Open Source as we've been practising it in the PHP project.

For now this CLA is only covering PDO, but once this precedence is set, it can easily expand over the rest of PHP as "it works fine for PDO". Another expansion could easily turn a CLA into an NDA if you really make it look black.

Another issue I see with the CLA is the patent clause. Where I live (Norway) and where I've lived (The Netherlands, Italy) there are no software patents. The practise does simply not exist, and for good reasons. Thoughts are free, and should stay free. It's absurd that trivial patents such as amazon's "One click patent" are even considered to be granted. Because software patents are such a moronic thing I would never agree to sign anything that mentions that I "warrant that the submission of My Contribution will include accurate details of" "related patents" "of which I am aware off". Although the FAQ writes that we're not expected to do a patent search, nothing is done to prevent the litigation against individual contributers in case their contribution was to be covered by a US software patent. This CLA does not give this protection to the contributors that is mentioned in the FAQ. It merely serves the interests of the big vendors which have 10.000s of patents themselves. In order to do real good for Open Source, those patents should be provided to the Open Source community free-of-charge. When IBM, MS and other big ones (Sun, here is your chance) provide their patents portfolio to Open Source projects other companies will think twice before trying to sue PHP (or their contributors) for patent infringement.

Besides some of the more legal issues, I've also concerns about developer interest in maintaining, or contributing, towards CLA covered bits of code. For eZ's projects we also have a CLA. There have been a few occasions where this CLA prevented people from contributing code. This is not what Open Source is about. It's not only about being able to use code freely, it's just as much as making it easy to contribute back. A CLA hinders this process, even more in the cases where simple updates (API changes in PHP f.e., proto updates, operating system support improvements) can not be done by every PHP contributor because they didn't sign a CLA. I do know that there were not many contributors actually looking at PDO before, but I think that has no influence on whether a CLA is good or not. I think the lack of developers is more because of the mostly (undocumented) complex workings of the extension and its drivers.

Besides this, the PHP project is our project, and if the big vendors want to make money through the PHP project by making PHP connect to their products better, I don't see why they should not follow our rules instead of dictating their own. There have been plenty of occasions as well where code (tests, fixes) were already contributed by either IBM and Oracle anyway.

I also have an issue with the license for the PDO parts. Although the FAQ writes correctly that there are some parts of PHP that do not fall under the PHP License, all of those parts have not been written for the PHP project specifically - they were always adopted from other sources. PDO is part of the PHP project, and should therefore not come with its own license that has to be OSI approved again.

I hope that I didn't forget anything in this longish email, but it should be clear that I'm totally against having a CLA on any part of PHP.

regards,

Derick

Vote Against Software Patents

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 12:23:00 +0000

Vote Against Software Patents

Skien, Norway

Wednesday, October 26th 2005, 14:23 CEST

The European Union is currently running an internet poll for the "European of the Year". The folks at No Software Patents give you a suggestion how to vote if you're caring about (or actually against) Software patents. Florian Mueller (who is leading the effort) is one of the candidates, and a strong vote for him might elevate the issue of software patents to the level of awareness that other major political topics enjoy.

Fanmail

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 09:55:00 +0000

Fanmail

Skien, Norway

Thursday, October 13th 2005, 11:55 CEST

I got a very nice email in my inbox from a PHP user concerning my "extreme hostility to the PHP community in general". This is ofcourse regarding my "fix" to combat PHP's stability (in other words, the "memory corruption" bug). The guy in question was acusing me that I "have acted just like Microsoft and eliminated a HUGE reason for PHP's success". I am not so sure where he pulls this comparison from actually. We're pretty good at fixing memory corruptions, addressing security problems and fixing bugs in my opinion.

Then my fan suggested that it is "time you [red. I] moved on, learn how to listen to a user base, or quit PHP before you kill it". I find those kinds of claims quite prepostruous as I probably spend more time on improving PHP then I spend on sleeping. Sure, some of the things that we do can be considered as "unpopular" as sometimes we need to fix a bug that breaks older scripts that relied on the buggy behavior. And yes, those scripts and applications needs to be fixed than which indeed takes time. We took that time to clean up our application and do the right thing, and had to delay our 3.7 release for a substantial amount of time, but in the end we ended up with a PHP version that doesn't segfault and a better application. This is called progress. If those "millions of users" had written proper tested code, they would not have had "broken websites" in the first place. Now they have the choice, just like we had, to either fix their scripts or use an older version of PHP.

For the record in case the person who mailed me this reads this post: I did not have anything to do with PHP 5.0.5. And under no circumstances will I stop doing any "favors" or "go away" because I fixed a couple of bugs. You should respect the work that volunteers put into PHP, and if are not happy with what we do with our spare time, donate some of your own.

What Is Your Salary?

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:36:00 +0000

What Is Your Salary?

Skien, Norway

Friday, October 7th 2005, 23:36 CEST

Through the BBC News website I heard about that the Norway Tax Service publishes on their website the annual income of all of their tax payers. I was quite stunned by this as in my opinion this is quite a breach of privacy. The newspapers are also full of lists that compare the incomes of specific groups of public figures. The data is now only online for 3 weeks, but "next year's tax returns will be published online, as per usual, but they will not be removed after three weeks, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's centre-left government has signalled." Luckily the newspapers are not publishing my annual income yet :) (and yes, you can find that on the net too).

It Does Not Only Happen in the US Anymore

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:12:00 +0000

It Does Not Only Happen in the US Anymore

Skien, Norway

Monday, September 26th 2005, 21:12 CEST

Somebody pointed me at this story from the Guardian - madness. With the UK pressing the rest of the EU is about to talk on the Data Rention laws too.

1984

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 22:16:00 +0000

1984

Skien, Norway

Thursday, July 14th 2005, 00:16 CEST

Perhaps a bit of a cliche title, but Mr Orwell did have a point :) The same thing seem to be happening here now in Europe after the horrible attacks in London last week, as were happening in the US after the 11-9 attacks: it is used as an excuse to take away civil liberties.

The European Commission, and also the national parliaments, have been discussing for some time the idea of forcing ISPs and telecom companies to store traffic data - records that contain the websites your visited, the email addresses you send mail to and whom you called at which time from which cell tower - and this all in the name of fighting criminality. Although that's a noble cause, they forget a couple of things (examples from the Netherlands):

The governments are not paying for the huge investments that ISPs need to make to store this traffic data for three! years. The costs for this are millions of euros per ISP which they will never see back, and will likely cause them to charge more to their customers.

All research that was done on this subject in the Netherlands show that collecting this data does not buy the autorities anything.

In the news today I read that "UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke" now wants to accelerate this hole process because of fighting terrorism. But with these regulations, the European People will also get stripped of important civil liberties, for something that is proven to be useles. Luckily the European Parliament's civil liberties committee doesn't agree with these new regulations either. One MEP said that "...introducing measures which sounded tough did not mean they would be effective. Fears were also raised about intrusion into privacy."

Besides this, it seems that some countries are giving up on the Schengen treaty, that allows freedom of travel inside the treaty's area.

Software Patents Bye-Bye

Wed, 06 Jul 2005 11:30:00 +0000

Software Patents Bye-Bye

Skien, Norway

Wednesday, July 6th 2005, 13:30 CEST

So, it seems that the European Parliament did the only correct thing today. They voted massively against the proposed directive "Patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions Directive". 648 voted against, 14 for and there where 18 abstenstions. Now the European Commision has to restart the whole process, if they are going to do this at all.

More information: Aftenposten (Norwegian), Forbes (English), Webwereld (Dutch), Heise (German).

The Last Battle

Tue, 05 Jul 2005 14:40:00 +0000

The Last Battle

Skien, Norway

Tuesday, July 5th 2005, 16:40 CEST

Tomorrow the European Parliament is voting for or against software patents. This is a very important issue for all people in Europe dealing with software development - both commerical vendors as Open Source software developers.

Many companies, including eZ systems have seen the light that software patents in its current proposal are going to be a total disaster. A small example that shows why software patents are bad can be found here - from this example you learn that virtually any web application has patented parts in it. Visit the No Software Patents! web site to see what you can do - before it's too late! Before the large corporations like Philips, Siemens and Nokia have the power to kill any innovation in software in Europe. This is something we don't want here!

NON!

Sun, 29 May 2005 20:44:00 +0000

NON!

Skien, Norway

Sunday, May 29th 2005, 22:44 CEST

It looks like the French voted against the European Constitution. The Dutch will probably do the same on Wednesday. I already cast my vote for it, also a No. I don't want a constitution that still leaves the European Parliament without powers, so that things like the Software Patents are not pushed through by the European Commision. (And no, this is not the only reason why I'm against).

Bush Visiting the Netherlands

Sat, 07 May 2005 16:45:00 +0000

Bush Visiting the Netherlands

Dieren, the Netherlands

Saturday, May 7th 2005, 18:45 CEST

The "leader" of the Free World is visiting our country to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the "victory in Europe". And he's going to do that in Margraten, in the soutern part of the Netherlands, where a large American 2nd World War cemetary is located. I wonder why we even allow this guy, who signed a provisional declaration of war with our country. Our government seems to be licking the US' ass at as many occasions as possible - which is interesting as I still think the US' moral values are not even close to our country 400 years ago, where torture , human rights violations and the death penalty are still not history.

Also, although they call themselves "the Land of the Free", it's everything except that. With laws like the Patriot Act and the intervention of religional values with the courts people are not Free to do what they want. Another amusing court case is the one where a 13 year old is denied abortion because "she's too young to choose". Things that I can not understand to be happening in a "free" country. Sure, I know the Dutch are a bunch of child killing, pot-smoking hippies, we still know how to have some idea of freedom-to-choose although our government is trying to get some very disturbing laws signed about storing traffic data (information about who you call, whom you send email to and which web sites you visit).

But back to Bush visiting. There were already some protests today and more planned for tomorrow. A lot will be made more secure , including the closure of two highways for a couple of hours (and not TWO WEEKS like the Americans wanted), abeit at a too high cost (2-5 million €). If Bush wants to visit he should pay the bill too, but it's better if the man behind the Al Qaida - Iraq link just stays away - we don't want you and your ideas here!

No Darwinism in the US

Sat, 07 May 2005 15:56:00 +0000

No Darwinism in the US

Dieren, the Netherlands

Saturday, May 7th 2005, 17:56 CEST

I stumbled upon this link - interesting to see that they still don't see the truth, or perhaps just want to see it. I find it disturbing though that the state is so much influenced by the church - I thought that they idea of secularism was to keep them as seperate as possible.

Dutch "iPOD" tax

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:49:00 +0000

Dutch "iPOD" tax

Skien, Norway

Friday, April 29th 2005, 10:49 CEST

The Dutch "Stichting Thuiskopie" got totally out of their mind. They're proposing to tax digital music players with €3.28 per GB because they can be used to store pirated music. I've always found the tax on empty CD stupid as hell because it also taxes people who just use empty CDs to make backups - but asking €3.28 per GB is a bit too bloody much. Especially also because if you buy music from iTunes, you already pay for the copyright.

This so-called tax is to compensate "artists" for people who make copies of copyrighted works but this same organization claims it's illegal to copy... really really strange. See also the article at The Register .

In the land of the free...

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 23:17:00 +0000

In the land of the free...

Skien, Norway

Friday, February 25th 2005, 00:17 CET

I was pointed to two URLs today that relate to the political situation in the USA. The first one describes the report of a fellow photographer being harrassed by people from the Homeland Security Deparment for making pictures and noting down shutterspeed/aperture. The second one I find much more concerning. I will not make comments on it yet, but I would recommend to read those two URLs yourself, and ask yourself carefully if this is really what people want (in the USA).

I'm not alone!

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 10:06:00 +0000

I'm not alone!

Skien, Norway

Thursday, November 4th 2004, 11:06 CET

Apparently somebody at CNN doesn't like the guy either...

(Click image for full screenshot)