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Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveilla... - 1 views

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    "Final version 10 July 2013 As technologies that facilitate State surveillance of communications advance, States are failing to ensure that laws and regulations related to communications surveillance adhere to international human rights and adequately protect the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. This document attempts to explain how international human rights law applies in the current digital environment, particularly in light of the increase in and changes to communications surveillance technologies and techniques. These principles can provide civil society groups, industry, States and others with a framework to evaluate whether current or proposed surveillance laws and practices are consistent with human rights. These principles are the outcome of a global consultation with civil society groups, industry and international experts in communications surveillance law, policy and technology."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveilla... - 1 views

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    "Final version 10 July 2013 As technologies that facilitate State surveillance of communications advance, States are failing to ensure that laws and regulations related to communications surveillance adhere to international human rights and adequately protect the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. This document attempts to explain how international human rights law applies in the current digital environment, particularly in light of the increase in and changes to communications surveillance technologies and techniques. These principles can provide civil society groups, industry, States and others with a framework to evaluate whether current or proposed surveillance laws and practices are consistent with human rights."
Paul Merrell

EU looks into telecoms blocking Internet calls - International Herald Tribune - 0 views

  • European Union regulators are looking into whether mobile phone operators who block customers from making inexpensive wireless calls over the Internet are breaking competition rules. The European Commission, the EU antitrust authority, has sent questionnaires to phone companies asking what "tools" they use to "control, manage, block, slow down or otherwise restrict or filter" Internet-based voice calls. The EU deadline for responding to the survey was Tuesday. The questionnaire, obtained by Bloomberg News, does not identify any companies. Some mobile carriers have blocked services that use voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP, which allows users to make calls over the Web. Companies may be seeking to stop customers from accessing applications, like eBay's Skype, to defend voice revenue from the less expensive Internet services, Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner, the research company, said.
    • Paul Merrell
       
      Building a Connected World --- The Role of Antitrust Law and Lawyers.
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    Superficially, this sounds like an application of the principles won by DG Competition in the Court of First Instance's Commission v. Microsoft interoperability decision. But note that here we deal with an investigation into deliberately-created interop barriers rather than those maintained by withholding full communication protocol specifications from competitors. Notice that the investigation encompasses throttling of internet connections for particular uses, an increasingly common practice by Comcast and other ISPs in the U.S., where both VOIP and P2P file-sharing are targeted uses. E.U. and U.S. antitrust law are similar, as efforts to harmonize antitrust law on both sides of The Pond are now decades old; this move does not bode well for bandwidth throttling in the U.S., particularly when aimed at throttling competition. It takes no giant mental leap to apply such principles to big vendor-dominated IT standards bodies that deliberately create or maintain interop barriers in data format standards. Indeed, DG Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has already served notice that interop barriers in standards-setting is an item of interest.
Paul Merrell

Hey ITU Member States: No More Secrecy, Release the Treaty Proposals | Electronic Front... - 0 views

  • The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will hold the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) in December in Dubai, an all-important treaty-writing event where ITU Member States will discuss the proposed revisions to the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR). The ITU is a United Nations agency responsible for international telecom regulation, a bureaucratic, slow-moving, closed regulatory organization that issues treaty-level provisions for international telecommunication networks and services. The ITR, a legally binding international treaty signed by 178 countries, defines the boundaries of ITU’s regulatory authority and provides "general principles" on international telecommunications. However, media reports indicate that some proposed amendments to the ITR—a negotiation that is already well underway—could potentially expand the ITU’s mandate to encompass the Internet.
  • The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will hold the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) in December in Dubai, an all-important treaty-writing event where ITU Member States will discuss the proposed revisions to the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR). The ITU is a United Nations agency responsible for international telecom regulation, a bureaucratic, slow-moving, closed regulatory organization that issues treaty-level provisions for international telecommunication networks and services. The ITR, a legally binding international treaty signed by 178 countries, defines the boundaries of ITU’s regulatory authority and provides "general principles" on international telecommunications. However, media reports indicate that some proposed amendments to the ITR—a negotiation that is already well underway—could potentially expand the ITU’s mandate to encompass the Internet. In similar fashion to the secrecy surrounding ACTA and TPP, the ITR proposals are being negotiated in secret, with high barriers preventing access to any negotiating document. While aspiring to be a venue for Internet policy-making, the ITU Member States do not appear to be very open to the idea of allowing all stakeholders (including civil society) to participate. The framework under which the ITU operates does not allow for any form of open participation. Mere access to documents and decision-makers is sold by the ITU to corporate “associate” members at prohibitively high rates. Indeed, the ITU’s business model appears to depend on revenue generation from those seeking to ‘participate’ in its policy-making processes. This revenue-based principle of policy-making is deeply troubling in and of itself, as the objective of policy making should be to reach the best possible outcome.
  • EFF, European Digital Rights, CIPPIC and CDT and a coalition of civil society organizations from around the world are demanding that the ITU Secretary General, the  WCIT-12 Council Working Group, and ITU Member States open up the WCIT-12 and the Council working group negotiations, by immediately releasing all the preparatory materials and Treaty proposals. If it affects the digital rights of citizens across the globe, the public needs to know what is going on and deserves to have a say. The Council Working Group is responsible for the preparatory work towards WCIT-12, setting the agenda for and consolidating input from participating governments and Sector Members. We demand full and meaningful participation for civil society in its own right, and without cost, at the Council Working Group meetings and the WCIT on equal footing with all other stakeholders, including participating governments. A transparent, open process that is inclusive of civil society at every stage is crucial to creating sound policy.
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  • Civil society has good reason to be concerned regarding an expanded ITU policy-making role. To begin with, the institution does not appear to have high regard for the distributed multi-stakeholder decision making model that has been integral to the development of an innovative, successful and open Internet. In spite of commitments at WSIS to ensure Internet policy is based on input from all relevant stakeholders, the ITU has consistently put the interests of one stakeholder—Governments—above all others. This is discouraging, as some government interests are inconsistent with an open, innovative network. Indeed, the conditions which have made the Internet the powerful tool it is today emerged in an environment where the interests of all stakeholders are given equal footing, and existing Internet policy-making institutions at least aspire, with varying success, to emulate this equal footing. This formula is enshrined in the Tunis Agenda, which was committed to at WSIS in 2005:
  • 83. Building an inclusive development-oriented Information Society will require unremitting multi-stakeholder effort. We thus commit ourselves to remain fully engaged—nationally, regionally and internationally—to ensure sustainable implementation and follow-up of the outcomes and commitments reached during the WSIS process and its Geneva and Tunis phases of the Summit. Taking into account the multifaceted nature of building the Information Society, effective cooperation among governments, private sector, civil society and the United Nations and other international organizations, according to their different roles and responsibilities and leveraging on their expertise, is essential. 84. Governments and other stakeholders should identify those areas where further effort and resources are required, and jointly identify, and where appropriate develop, implementation strategies, mechanisms and processes for WSIS outcomes at international, regional, national and local levels, paying particular attention to people and groups that are still marginalized in their access to, and utilization of, ICTs.
  • Indeed, the ITU’s current vision of Internet policy-making is less one of distributed decision-making, and more one of ‘taking control.’ For example, in an interview conducted last June with ITU Secretary General Hamadoun Touré, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin raised the suggestion that the union might take control of the Internet: “We are thankful to you for the ideas that you have proposed for discussion,” Putin told Touré in that conversation. “One of them is establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).” Perhaps of greater concern are views espoused by the ITU regarding the nature of the Internet. Yesterday, at the World Summit of Information Society Forum, Mr. Alexander Ntoko, head of the Corporate Strategy Division of the ITU, explained the proposals made during the preparatory process for the WCIT, outlining a broad set of topics that can seriously impact people's rights. The categories include "security," "interoperability" and "quality of services," and the possibility that ITU recommendations and regulations will be not only binding on the world’s nations, but enforced.
  • Rights to online expression are unlikely to fare much better than privacy under an ITU model. During last year’s IGF in Kenya, a voluntary code of conduct was issued to further restrict free expression online. A group of nations (including China, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) released a Resolution for the UN General Assembly titled, “International Code of Conduct for Information Security.”  The Code seems to be designed to preserve and protect national powers in information and communication. In it, governments pledge to curb “the dissemination of information that incites terrorism, secessionism or extremism or that undermines other countries’ political, economic and social stability, as well as their spiritual and cultural environment.” This overly broad provision accords any state the right to censor or block international communications, for almost any reason.
  • EFF Joins Coalition Denouncing Secretive WCIT Planning Process June 2012 Congressional Witnesses Agree: Multistakeholder Processes Are Right for Internet Regulation June 2012 Widespread Participation Is Key in Internet Governance July 2012 Blogging ITU: Internet Users Will Be Ignored Again if Flawed ITU Proposals Gain Traction June 2012 Global Telecom Governance Debated at European Parliament Workshop
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Net Neutrality: EU Parliament Must Amend Kroes' Dangerous Proposal | La Quadrature du Net - 1 views

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    "Paris, 5 December 2013 - On Monday 9th December, the rapporteur Pilar del Castillo Vera (EPP - Spain) will present to the "Industry" (ITRE) Committee of the European Parliament her draft report on Neelie Kroes' proposal for a Regulation on the Telecom Package. Citizens must urge MEPs to amend this report in order to accurately define what qualifies as 'specialised services' with 'enhanced' quality of service, and ensure that the Regulation will guarantee a genuine and unconditional Net neutrality principle."
Paul Merrell

F.C.C. Backs Opening Net Rules for Debate - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to open for public debate new rules meant to guarantee an open Internet. Before the plan becomes final, though, the chairman of the commission, Tom Wheeler, will need to convince his colleagues and an array of powerful lobbying groups that the plan follows the principle of net neutrality, the idea that all content running through the Internet’s pipes is treated equally.While the rules are meant to prevent Internet providers from knowingly slowing data, they would allow content providers to pay for a guaranteed fast lane of service. Some opponents of the plan, those considered net neutrality purists, argue that allowing some content to be sent along a fast lane would essentially discriminate against other content.
  • “We are dedicated to protecting and preserving an open Internet,” Mr. Wheeler said immediately before the commission vote. “What we’re dealing with today is a proposal, not a final rule. We are asking for specific comment on different approaches to accomplish the same goal, an open Internet.”
  • Mr. Wheeler argued on Thursday that the proposal did not allow a fast lane. But the proposed rules do not address the connection between an Internet service provider, which sells a connection to consumers, and the operators of backbone transport networks that connect various parts of the Internet’s central plumbing.That essentially means that as long as an Internet service provider like Comcast or Verizon does not slow the service that a consumer buys, the provider can give faster service to a company that pays to get its content to consumers unimpeded
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  • The plan will be open for comment for four months, beginning immediately.
  • The public will have until July 15 to submit initial comments on the proposal to the commission, and until Sept. 10 to file comments replying to the initial discussions.
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    I'll need to read the proposed rule, but this doesn't sound good. the FCC majority tries to spin this as options still being open, but I don't recall ever seeing formal regulations changed substantially from their proposed form. If their were to be substantial change, another proposal and comment period would be likely. The public cannot comment on what has not been proposed, so substantial departure from the proposal, absent a new proposal and comment period, would offend basic principles of public notice and comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedures Act. The proverbial elephant in the room that the press hasn't picked up on yet is the fight that is going on behind the scenes in the Dept. of Justice. If the Anti-trust Division gets its way, DoJ's public comments on the proposed rule could blow this show out of the water. The ISPs are regulated utility monopolies in vast areas of the U.S. with market consolidation at or near the limits of what the anti-trust folk will tolerate. And leveraging one monopoly (service to subscribers) to impose another (fees for internet-based businesses to gain high speed access) is directly counter to the Sherman Act's section 2.   http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/2
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Open source to make caring for your health feel wonderful | Opensource.com - 0 views

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    [Interview Juhan Sonin of Involution Studios] "Juhan Sonin wants to influence the world from protein, to policy, to pixel. And, he believes the only way to do that is with open source principles guiding the way. Juhan is the Creative Director at Involution Studios, a design firm educating and empowering people to feel wonderful by creating, developing, and licensing their work for the public."
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    "Juhan Sonin wants to influence the world from protein, to policy, to pixel. And, he believes the only way to do that is with open source principles guiding the way. Juhan is the Creative Director at Involution Studios, a design firm educating and empowering people to feel wonderful by creating, developing, and licensing their work for the public."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Open source needs to be more than just Linux | Opensource.com - 0 views

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    "Linux took a principle and filled in an important technology gap that inspired the filling of a thousand other gaps too. This led to the rise of the venerable Linux distribution, as myriad as consumer-grade platforms such as Ubuntu and Fedora, to server-grade such as CentOS and Debian, and down to the downright weird such as RebeccaBlackOS. "
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    "Linux took a principle and filled in an important technology gap that inspired the filling of a thousand other gaps too. This led to the rise of the venerable Linux distribution, as myriad as consumer-grade platforms such as Ubuntu and Fedora, to server-grade such as CentOS and Debian, and down to the downright weird such as RebeccaBlackOS. "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Why TPP Threatens To Undermine One Of The Fundamental Principles Of Science | Techdirt - 1 views

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    "from the and-that's-a-fact dept Last week, we wrote that among the final obstacles to completing the TPP agreement was the issue of enhanced protection for drugs. More specifically, the fight is over an important new class of medicines called "biologics," which are produced from living organisms, and tend to be more complex and expensive to devise."
Paul Merrell

Microsoft breaks IE8 interoperability promise | The Register - 0 views

  • In March, Microsoft announced that their upcoming Internet Explorer 8 would: "use its most standards compliant mode, IE8 Standards, as the default." Note the last word: default. Microsoft argued that, in light of their newly published interoperability principles, it was the right thing to do. This declaration heralded an about-face and was widely praised by the web standards community; people were stunned and delighted by Microsoft's promise. This week, the promise was broken. It lasted less than six months. Now that Internet Explorer IE8 beta 2 is released, we know that many, if not most, pages viewed in IE8 will not be shown in standards mode by default.
  • How many pages are affected by this change? Here's the back of my envelope: The PC market can be split into two segments — the enterprise market and the home market. The enterprise market accounts for around 60 per cent of all PCs sold, while the home market accounts for the remaining 40 per cent. Within enterprises, intranets are used for all sorts of things and account for, perhaps, 80 per cent of all page views. Thus, intranets account for about half of all page views on PCs!
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    Article by Hakon Lie of Opera Software. Also note that acdcording to the European Commission, "As for the tying of separate software products, in its Microsoft judgment of 17 September 2007, the Court of First Instance confirmed the principles that must be respected by dominant companies. In a complaint by Opera, a competing browser vendor, Microsoft is alleged to have engaged in illegal tying of its Internet Explorer product to its dominant Windows operating system. The complaint alleges that there is ongoing competitive harm from Microsoft's practices, in particular in view of new proprietary technologies that Microsoft has allegedly introduced in its browser that would reduce compatibility with open internet standards, and therefore hinder competition. In addition, allegations of tying of other separate software products by Microsoft, including desktop search and Windows Live have been brought to the Commission's attention. The Commission's investigation will therefore focus on allegations that a range of products have been unlawfully tied to sales of Microsoft's dominant operating system." http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/19&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Europe reverses course on net neutrality legislation | Ars Technica - 0 views

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    "by Duncan Geere Mar 7, 2015 3:05 pm UTC Share Tweet 164 Less than a year after the European Parliament voted to enshrine net neutrality in law, the principle has come under attack by the European Commission."
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    "by Duncan Geere Mar 7, 2015 3:05 pm UTC Share Tweet 164 Less than a year after the European Parliament voted to enshrine net neutrality in law, the principle has come under attack by the European Commission."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Does Commissioner Oettinger Want to Discard Net Neutrality? | La Quadrature du Net - 0 views

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    "Paris, 18 November 2014 - Günther Oettinger, Digital Commissioner made his first post on his blog in which he clearly introduces garanteeing internet access in rural zones as justification to give in to the demands of the Telcos to consolidate or increase their unwarranted earnings. Although the author has tried to avoid mentioning Net Neutrality, this blog post reveals his intended strategy regarding this principle" [# ! As #essential... ! ... as any of the ‪#‎HumanRights‬ # ! .... randomly picked up.]
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    "Paris, 18 November 2014 - Günther Oettinger, Digital Commissioner made his first post on his blog in which he clearly introduces garanteeing internet access in rural zones as justification to give in to the demands of the Telcos to consolidate or increase their unwarranted earnings. Although the author has tried to avoid mentioning Net Neutrality, this blog post reveals his intended strategy regarding this principle"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

GM45 chipsets: remove the ME (manageability engine) - 0 views

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    "This sections relates to disabling and removing the ME (Intel Management Engine) on GM45. This was originally done on the ThinkPad X200, and later adapted for the ThinkPad R400/T400/T500. It can in principle be done on any GM45 or GS45 system. The ME is a blob that typically must be left inside the flash chip (in the ME region, as outlined by the default descriptor). On GM45, it is possible to remove it without any ill effects. All other parts of coreboot on GM45 systems (provided GMA MHD4500 / Intel graphics) can be blob-free, so removing the ME was the last obstacle to make GM45 a feasible target in libreboot (the systems can also work without the microcode blobs). "
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    "This sections relates to disabling and removing the ME (Intel Management Engine) on GM45. This was originally done on the ThinkPad X200, and later adapted for the ThinkPad R400/T400/T500. It can in principle be done on any GM45 or GS45 system. The ME is a blob that typically must be left inside the flash chip (in the ME region, as outlined by the default descriptor). On GM45, it is possible to remove it without any ill effects. All other parts of coreboot on GM45 systems (provided GMA MHD4500 / Intel graphics) can be blob-free, so removing the ME was the last obstacle to make GM45 a feasible target in libreboot (the systems can also work without the microcode blobs). "
Paul Merrell

AT&T Mobility LLC, et al v. AU Optronics Corp., et al :: Ninth Circuit :: US Courts of ... - 0 views

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    This page includes the opinion of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on an interlocutory appeal from a district court decision to dismiss two California state law causes of action from an ongoing case, leaving only the federal law causes of action. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, vacated the district court's decision, and remanded for consideration of the dismissal issue under the correct legal standard. This was a pro-plaintiff decision that makes it very likely that the case will continue with the state law causes of action reinstated against all or nearly all defendants. This is an unusually important price-fixing case with potentially disruptive effect among mobile device component manufacturers and by such a settlement or judgment's ripple effects, manufacturers of other device components globally. Plaintiffs are several major  voice/data communications services in the U.S. with the defendants being virtually all of the manufacturers of LCD panels used in mobile telephones. One must suspect that if price-fixing is in fact universal in the LCD panel manufacturing industry, price-fixing is likely common among manufacturers of other device components. According to the Ninth Circuit opinion, the plaintiffs' amended complaint includes detailed allegations of specific price-fixing agreements and price sharing actions by principles or agents of each individual defendant company committed within the State of California, which suggests that plaintiffs have very strong evidence that the alleged conspiracy exists. This is a case to watch.    
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

conflict situationJoint Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Responses to Conflict ... - 1 views

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    "1. Scope of the Joint Declaration This Joint Declaration addresses systematic or targeted attacks on freedom of expression which are aimed at silencing certain perspectives or voices, whether internationally, nationally or locally, and State responses to such attacks. Such attacks are perpetrated in different contexts, including of international and non-international armed conflicts, terrorist attacks and widespread organised crime. 2. General Principles a) States have a direct responsibility under international human rights law to respect freedom of expression and they are also under a positive obligation to take effective measures to protect freedom of expression against attacks by third parties, including by ensuring accountability for any attacks on those exercising their right to freedom of expression and by raising awareness about the importance of freedom of expression. ..."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) - 0 views

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    [At the request of our membership, ITU will convene the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 3-14 December 2012. This landmark conference will review the current International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), which serve as the binding global treaty outlining the principles which govern the way international voice, data and video traffic is handled, and which lay the foundation for ongoing innovation and market growth. The ITRs were last negotiated in Melbourne, Australia in 1988, and there is broad consensus that the text now needs to be updated to reflect the dramatically different information and communication technology (ICT) landscape of the 21st century.]
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Google's Fallacious Piracy Self-Study (Part 1) | MUSIC * TECHNOLOGY * POLICY - 1 views

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    "The White Queen] "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll Google has released a self-study (How Google Fights Piracy). While hope springs eternal, the self-study falls quite short of both truth and reality. Let's see why. The Context Even if you discount the moral hazard involved with funding a study of yourself, the Google survey of Google's involvement with piracy is a breathtaking document. I would suggest that the self-study rests on a number of core principles for Google's business: 1. Nothing to See Here, Move Along: First and foremost is Google's deep and abiding desire"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation - 0 views

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    "by Richard Stallman Every decision a person makes stems from the person's values and goals. People can have many different goals and values; fame, profit, love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a good person might have. When the goal is a matter of principle, we call that idealism. My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society bette"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Declaration of Internet Freedom - 0 views

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    "Preamble We believe that a free and open Internet can bring about a better world. To keep the Internet free and open, we call on communities, industries and countries to recognize these principles. We believe that they will help to bring about more creativity, more innovation and more open societies."
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