[hackerspaces] S036.NET attacked by German Police

[Matt Joyce]

Way I see it, politicians contribute nothing of value to society.  They
never have.  But engineers, scientists, hackers, "the doers, the makers of
things" do contribute.  So contribute.  If someone tries to stop you from
doing so, go under over and around them.  When that fails, it's time to go
through them with a bulldozer.

=P

On Apr 27, 2010 9:24 AM, <quemener.yves at free.fr> wrote:


----- "Matt Joyce" <matt at nycresistor.com> a écrit :

> I guess what I am saying is, talking at people, promoting an ideology,
> and various other sundry bits of politics do not bring to my mouth a

> flavor I am willing to share.
The idea is not really to promote an ideology. As you point it out,
hackerspaces but also free software, does it quite well. The main work is to
provide people with another ballot option. Not promoting, it, making it
available. That alone is quite a big job already.


> Put a soldering iron in every home and see how easy it will be to lock
> them out of their applia...
Filesharing tools are already in most homes. I suspect there are more people
using filesharing tools for downloading movies than there are people using
VCRs. Yet politics fight it today despite its overwhelming popularity,
claiming it to be morally and legally wrong. And the fact is, their point of
view is not without merit. There is a need to transform filesharing into a
socially acceptable practice. This involves technological innovation but
also politics and probably some new business models, a la flattr (
http://flattr.com/). People are convinced that having unlimited culture at
their fingertips is awesome. The hackers' mission is done there. But their
efforts will be in vain if politicians fail to understand the opportunities
it presents.

Filesharing is only one such example. How long do you think DIY biology and
genetics will be possible without lawmakers forbidding these practices at
large ?


> I guess what I am saying is... the very function of hackerspaces, and
> their success is paramoun...
Yes. That is a real problem. The world is full of interesting hacking
projects to do and 24 hours are not enough. It is sickening to see the
intelligence and energy wasted by competent people on issues like software
patents or DMCA, yet, this is something that better be addressed in an
organized way.

I don't know how the situation is in your country, but here the political
implications of HADOPI can be quite serious for computing : internet
blacklists, three-strikes anti-piracy laws without possible recourse,
mandatory "connexion securing" software (that will be proprietary and
probably not cross-platform). All of these will probably not be more applied
than the law that says you can go to jail if you sell a free DVD reader (we
have our own DMCA here, never been used in court yet) but I am not sure I
want my country's law to contain such dangerous bits without protesting.

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