MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-02-09 |
| FROM | Ruben I Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [hangout] Re: [fairuse] Re: E-Gov-OS conference
|
I happen to agree with this assessment. If it's not done in a very well organized way,
we will just come off as a bunch of malcontents. This has to be thought through
and I need to talk to people about it. As I said before, as a lame duck, I don't want to
drag the next president into something he is not committed to do. NY Fair Use
would need to work with NYLXS to pull this off well.
I think the first step is a boycott, and I hope Richard reconsiders and calls a boycot.
Nothing Tonewy has yet done has been of any help to anyone in the FS community and this event
might be just a sleeper. I still think he's on the take. At minimum, he is not anwerable to
the community in any way. I was actully more interested in the Tech Expo that Novalug is involved with
which Jim announced on NYLUG. And I have been cooking up a political action for Albany and City Hall.
The quetion is, what is the most effective means to our goals at this junction. Clearly this egovos is
a runaway train wreck. It might just be easier to boycott it and ignor it, and focus on something
positive with the City. It's three days. Does it include and exhibitors section where negotiations can
be started for deals? Will Microoft be on the expo floor?
I have a roadmap now for Federal Contracts, and the FSCC wil probibly invest energy and money in
persueing such contracts. Money, at this point, is at least as important as make political hay.
And really, that speaking list is such a group of minor players. The wierd thing is that they have no idea
how minor they really are. If my first writing wasn't enough to turn the tide on this, nothing else said
or done can have positive affect. It just turns into ranting at the wind.
I'm going to call and NY Fair Use meeting for next week and we'll decide what we want to do. We can either
attach on this front, or we can try to do something constructive with the 6 Billion dollar NYC deficit,
and try to make a difference here. Personally, I wish we could do both, but I don't have the man power.
One thing is clear, the invitation of Microsoft at this event undermines the community and if this goes forward
in its current format, I'd have to say that the community should be looking at the organizers very suspiciously.
I'm not buying into Bruces arguement at all and I lost faith in Stanco a long time ago. These people don't get it.
Until the heat is turned on from the grassroot level, nothing is changing. The only thing a conference like this
can possitively contribute is for opening up contracts in a broadway for vendors. Microsofts presence directly
undermines this agenda, since it is Microsoft which has to be largely unseated and because MS doesn't play fair.
It's likely to end up being just another useless tarpit like the digbat running Public Knowledge who embarresed
herself and set the movement back on the P2P issue by several months. She actually started to negotiate with Berman
as to which our of property right we would be willing to give away to the RIAA. The whole Washington Scene is increasingly
looking like a snakepit. We should just probibly focus on the home front. Congress is turned over every two years.
There are a lot of groups in a lot counties. They all have to come home, and we should probably turn up the heat
at home.
Ruben
Thus speaketh Jay
<now affords us, we must work both inside the doors and outside the doors.>>
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