[ILUG] French banning free software?

[Brian Foster]

  | Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 19:55:34 +0100
  | From: Brian Foster <blf at blf.utvinternet.ie>
  | 
  |   | Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 20:30:46 +0000
  |   | From: Braun Brelin <bbrelin at gmail.com>
  |   | 
  |   | Has anyone else heard about this?  I just read it today on digg.com...
  |   |   http://www.fsffrance.org/news/article2005-11-25.en.html
  | 
  |  as others have pointed out that is a remarkably bad translation.
  |[ ... ]
  |  I do not know of any (competent) English translations of any
  |  of: the proposal, analysis of the proposal, arguments for or
  |  against the proposal, or the petition(s).

 there is a distinct possibility there is a profoundly
 stupid proposal here, and one that _might_ be voted on
 as early as the end of this month (Dec-2005) ....

 the news side-bar at GrokLaw pointed out a PC Pro article:

   http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/81087/france-mulls-tough-copyright-laws.html

 PC Pro claims (the opponents of the proposal claim) that
 numerous acts involving recorded media (e.g., CDs, DVDs)
 will be made criminal offences:  ripping, lending to a
 friend, downloading, etc.;  and that the software required
 to rip, download, etc., will be illegal;  and software that
 tries to prevent/restrict ripping/downloading/&tc is apriori
 legal, must be used, and must not be circumvented;  and that
 a consequence is loading or using an MP3 player basically
 becomes illegal.

 that article links to a French(?) site with slightly more
 competent English than the original garbled gibberish:

   http://eucd.info/index.php?English-readers

 (follow the « la suite » links to see the full articles.)

 there are also claims on some blogs (some linked to by the
 above site) that certain French authorities have said that
 licensing terms for free software must somehow be changed.
 this part is even murkier then the rest of this mostly
 opaque story(? or scare?).  it is very unclear if such a
 statement was made, whether or not this possible statement
 should be taken seriously, _exactly_ what software would
 be affected (e.g., just download/rip/chat/filesharing/&tc,
 or _all_(?) FOSS, or ...?), and so on ....

 I have no idea what or how much of the above is hyperbole,
 what or how much is approximately factual, and what or how
 much is reasonable extrapolation.

 but there does seem to be a possibility of a major problem.
 ( my *speculation* on this is that, if the above is broadly
  true and if it's enacted broadly unchanged, it will then be
  used as a "precedent" for "reforming" (not) the copyright
  laws elsewhere in the EU; i.e., whatever is going on is not
  "just" a French issue. )

cheers!
	-blf-
-- 
Experienced (20+ yrs) kernel/software Eng: | Brian Foster   Montpellier,
 • Unix, embedded, &tc;  • Linux;  • doc;  | blf at utvinternet.ie   FRANCE
 • IDL, automated testing, process, &tc.   |  Stop E$$o (ExxonMobile)!
Résumé (CV) http://www.blf.utvinternet.ie  |     http://www.stopesso.com