Now I admit, reading through the almost 40 pages of legalese is not for everyone. Luckily, the EFF (the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a long-standing fighter for your rights online) has written an excellent summary on the document. I recommend reading that if you don’t want to read the actual document itself. There is also a nice Dutch summary written by BOF (Bits of Freedom, sort of the national counterpart of the EFF). Both list four reasons why ACTA is dangerous:

• Intermediate parties, the internet providers, will be made to enforce the agreement by filtering internet traffic relating to file-sharing;
• Disconnection from the internet in case of alleged infringement of copyright, you as an internet user can be disconnected by your ISP if there is an accusation of infringement, no trial, no judge, just gone from the net;
• Criminalization of non-commercial use, severe penalties for mere citizens such as you and I that up until now were reserved for criminals who are willfully and for profit mass-producing illegal copies of, for example, movie DVD’s;
• Seizing of computers and other equipment in the case of alleged copyright infringement, in other words: the police can come and take your computer (and destroy it) if you use file-sharing technology, irrespective of whether you are sharing copyrighted material or not.

Several organisations so far have jumped on the ‘Stop ACTA’ bandwagon, and a simple search on ’stop ACTA’ on a search engine of your choice will get you a whole lot of sites that are somehow trying to counter this agreement. You can sign several petitions, and you should. But in the end, a petition is just a single number, and does not impress the average member of the European parliament that much. What impresses them most: personal letters, emails or even phone calls, where citizens of their constitucy explain why they believe ACTA is not a Good Thing.

So I hereby call everyone to arms: write your members of parliament! Tell them, in your own words, why you think ACTA should not become law in Europe. The site of the European parliament can give you a list of the members that represent your country, and their contact details. Of course, you can write to all members of the EP. But, in general, members of the parliament represent the people from their own country and are therefore more likely to listen to input from their country. On the other hand, you do not have to restrict yourself to those members of parliament that are aligned with your own political preferences.

Try to make your letter personal! Don’t just copy and paste one of the many example texts that are all over the web. Rather, use them as inspiration. A thousand different emails make a bigger impression than ten-thousand copies of the same letter. You do not have to write high-quality prose ready for publiction in the papers, so even if you think yourself a bad writer I am sure you can come up with a sentence or two saying you do not want ACTA in your life.

Some members of parliament will respond to your letter, perhaps explaining why they think ACTA is a good thing, or why they agree with you that it is not. Some might not even reply, and yet in other cases you will hear from an assistant to the member of parliament. Don’t be discouraged by that. Voicing your opinion is important, and even if you do not get to speak to the member of parliament in person, your input will be passed on and considered when time comes to vote.

Act now! Stop ACTA! Write to your members of parliament!

What they ask is “to stop the confusingly similar use of the TWIKI TM in vague statements”. I find that an odd request, as the term ‘vague’ is highly subjective. If we (the Foswiki project) were to bow to their threats, where will it end? Do we have to remove the T-word completely from the Foswiki site? That sounds close to censorship to me, and (IANAL but) I am sure that is not how trademark law (even in the US) was meant.

A trademark can be used to protect your brand from other entrepreneurs setting up a brand identical or similar to yours. It can not and should not be abused to limit free speech. We have seen a lot of that in recent years, and people like EFF have been fighting such practices by huge corporations for aeons.

The Foswiki project should be able to, and will, mention TWiki is the project from which it forked. If we start redacting history, where will it end? Personally, I think that with this message, we see TWiki.NET for its worth: a venture capital corporation with anonymous investors that stop nowhere to trample over the competition.

I think they are underestimating the force of the closely-knit group of volunteers that are determined to make Foswiki a success, despite legal threats and intimidations. In fact, this is just a mere distraction. We know the T-word is trademarked. In fact, on the Foswiki site there is ample mention of the trademark when the T-word is used.

Well, TWiki.NET. Bring it on. I mentioned the T-word in this blog post a couple of times. Am I next? Will you threaten me or my business with law-suits for using the TWIKI TM “in vague statements”? I fear you not!

Here is the threat-o-gram (copied from the mailing list archive):

Image courtesy of Colas Nahaboo

> Von: Will Thomas
> Datum: 13. Januar 2009 03:22:14 MEZ
> An: Martin XYZ , Michael Corbett
> >
> Betreff: confusingly similar use of the term TWiki – time to stop
> the abuse.
>
> Hello Martin and Michael,
>
> Please immediately take action to stop the confusingly similar use
> of the TWIKI TM in vague statements such as “continuing the
> community-led tradition of the TWiki project” on the FOSWiki project.
>
>
>
> > Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use
>
> Both your businesses could be construed as directly benefiting from
> this TM use.
>
> The fair use defense in trademark law is not precluded by the
> possibility of confusion, according to the U.S. Supreme Court in
> 2004.[1] However, courts may consider the possibility of confusion
> in analyzing whether a use is fair or not. Intent to sow confusion
> is also relevant; hence, the general rule that no more of the
> trademark should be used than necessary for the legitimate purpose.
> For instance, use of a word mark is preferred to a logo, and a word
> mark in the same style of type as surrounding text is preferred to a
> word mark in its trademarked distinctive type.
>
> As the two individuals primarily responsible for the project
> marketing, you need to very carefully consider the implications of
> your continued abuse of the TWiki TM at the FOSWiki site. Fair use
> is clearly defined.
>
> We wish you the best of luck with the project. We are simply
> requesting that you follow the established norms. I’m sure at some
> point you will ask the same of others regarding the FOSWiki brand
> that you are working so diligently to establish. We are very happy
> the new community is making progress.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Will
> –
> Will Thomas
> Chief Operating Officer
> TWIKI.NET – the Enterprise Wiki
> 440 N. Wolfe Rd. Sunnyvale, CA 94085
>
> (W) http://www.twiki.net
> (E) will.thomas@tw…
> (M) +1.408.571.9021
> (T) +1.408.524.1558
> (F) +1.650.352.9020
>
> This email and any attachments thereto may contain private,
> confidential, and privileged material for the sole use of the
> intended recipient. Any review, copying, or distribution of
> this email (or any attachments thereto) by others is strictly
> prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact
> the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any
> copies of this email and any attachments thereto.

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Hacking at Random

International technology & security conference. Four days of technology, ideological debates and hands-on tinkering. On August 13-16, 2009 the 20th anniversary edition of the four-yearly Dutch outdoor technology-conference will take place near Vierhouten, NL.

What is HAR?

Since 1989 the international community that builds the internet has been getting together on a series of conferences to discuss the state of contemporary technology, the future of it and the sociological and political consequences of their work. The participants vary from students and people with personal interests to researchers, scientists and entrepreneurs who are widely recognized as the best in their field. The atmosphere is friendly and relaxed, the average level of knowledge is high and outside of the official lectures the site is buzzing with energy, ideas and projects. The New York Times likened the 1997 edition to a “Woodstock for Hackers”. We do our best to keep that atmosphere. When these conferences first happened twenty years ago, the internet was like the Wild West, a new frontier to explore. That has changed, virtually every household in the Western world has access to the internet and, just as happened in the Wild West, new questions have risen. Questions of governance, sustainability, integration with existing power structures, shortage of IP space and energy, censorship, security, etc. The notion of hacking, to use a system in a creative way that was not thought of when it was invented, has also shown to be applicable to fields outside of ICT technology.

Where is HAR?

The location (+52° 19′ 50.02″, +5° 49′ 27.98″) is near Vierhouten, a small settlement in the beautiful Veluwe area renowned for its culinary industry. The former socialist youth-camp de Paasheuvel provides some good old-fashioned Dutch gezelligheid. A variety of camping areas will cater to our broad range of camping and non-camping audience: varying from secluded spots in the foliage to larger fields for those of you who want to cluster together to form a village. There is a train-station nearby, in Nunspeet. From there it is a 10-minute drive to the festival terrain. Some form of transport from the station to the terrain will be arranged, but the truly adventurous among you may choose to take a hike: it is definetely within walking distance and the surroundings will not disappoint.

Who is HAR?

You, me and some hundreds (if not thousands) of other like-minded folks. In true spirit, there will be no visitors but only volunteers. In order to keep costs low, expect to lend a hand here and there. You might be operating the A/V-equipment in one of the lecture tents, sweep the floor in the bar tent, check in visitors at the entrance or pour drinks at the bar. A great way to discover new talents, or develop those hidden ones you never suspected you had! Of course, there is a somewhat smaller group of madmen and women that will lay (and have been laying) the groundwork for another great edition in the year leading up to the event. This event could easily be dubbed ‘the next generation’. Because, yes, the original crew that has been working hard on these conferences have earned a relaxing holiday by organising the four preceeding events. A new generation is eager to take over, and continue their legacy. Not to say that the old farts are not interested, au contraire my friends. There is a healthy mix of new blood and experienced hands currently working on the necesarry preparations. In fact, this is reflected nicely in the foundation that was set up to handle all the paperwork and other legal requirements: the Hxx foundation. Its board is a 50/50 mix of old and new: Aldert Hazenberg and Mischa Peters have been involved to a great extent in all past events, Koen Martens made his organising debut 3 years ago on WTH and Mathijs Schmittmann is our new kid on the block. In case you are wondering “but where is Rop Gonggrijp”, no fears: he is right around the corner and believes we “pesky new-generation event-hackers” are going to do just fine. He will help out where possible, but more on that below. Of course, HAR will not be happen without huge sums of money. We have tried to keep ticket prices low, even in these times of financial crisis, so we are attracting a number of sponsors and donors. But don’t worry, HAR will not be called ‘Yoyodyne Inc. HAR2009′ even if Yoyodyne coughs up millions of euro’s.

And more..

As this is being written, the last work is undertaken on the ticket-webshop, which we hope to have online early december. At the same time, the program committee, led by the more than qualified Rop Gonggrijp, is preparing the call for papers and otherwise developing a solid lecture program that’ll make your mouth water (even if you have visited every single conference between WTH and now and seen em all). Of course, planning has started on an in-promptu power infrastructure and intranet, with uplink to the interwebs. And naturally, there will be various foods and beverages.

Subscribe

If you want to receive the latest news on HAR2009 as it happens, be sure to subscribe to the relatively low-volume announcement list. Send an email to announce-subscribe@har2009.org or visit www.har2009.org and enter your email in the subscribe form. Perhaps you’re thinking “hey, I want to help!”. If you have some time in the next months and are prepared to make a commitment, send an email to help@har2009.org. The wiki is available at http://wiki.har2009.org/. Potential sponsors can mail directly to sponsoring@har2009.org. Press inquiries can be sent to press@har2009.org.

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I’ve been in Prato for the last two days (well, actually, only two nights) for the first official european PGday! PGday is a gathering of PostgreSQL geeks from europe and beyond. For those that might be wondering what PostgreSQL is, it is the leading open-source database software. Whereas most people might know mysql from their website hosters, PostgreSQL is used by anyone with serious database needs (say, databases with sizes in gigabytes to terrabytes) and increasingly is the choice for enterprises using oracle or informix before.

So i’m once more visitting the country of icecream, pasta, using the car horn instead of the blinkers and a requirement to put your ID on file before being allowed to go on the internet. The venue is Monash university, in a nice old building not far from the local castle. I haven’t seen that much from the city though, as the hotel is only 5 minutes walking distance. On my first night, i had the company of two mosquito’s in my room. I didn’t get much sleep until after i terminated those.

PGday is like a warm bath, the PostgreSQL community is one of those communities that just feels good. I see a lot of familiar faces, people i already met at fosdem 2008. But a lot of new faces too. The european PGday is a combination with the Italian PGday. In fact, last year it was called the Italian PGday. But it had such attraction to non-Italians, plus the fact that in february the European user group was formed, that this year it is truly european. The intention is to make it a yearly event.

We are now on the beginning of day 2, with a lecture by David Fetter about one of the many great new features: recursive queries. Yesterday, there were already some lectures on more new features: windowing functions among them. They’re great for time-series analysis, among other uses. Later today there will be a talk about in-place upgrades, which I hope promises to enable upgrades between major version numbers (eg. 8.2 to 8.3). Upgrading to a new major version is now more often than not delayed (or even skipped) because the down-time that comes with a dump-restore cycle on big databases is not acceptable in mission-critical databases.

Next to those DBA-targetted talks, there is a track for developers too, that starts with the next talk (the one i’m waiting for now in one of the nice bars in the building). What I personally would have like to have seen is sort of an introduction to the PostgreSQL code base. I haven’t yet gotten my hands dirty on any serious PostgreSQL development, apart from some small tours in the codebase to check why a certain feature did this or that.

Back of program leaflet.

One thing that became clear from the keynote speech is that the development model that has been in use for the 10 years that PostgreSQL is in existence so far is not suited for the continued growth of the project. As more and more developers and users are getting involved with the development process, a new model is needed. Changes are being made currently to accommodate the growth of the project. And this is perhaps a way for me to start a career as a PostgreSQL developer too: there is a need for patch-reviewers. Initially, one would review the patch on the basis of some basic rules (i’d guess mostly syntax and style). A great way to get to know the various parts of the codebase from up close.

I’ve been a PostgreSQL user and DBA for a while now, and recently I decided to make it one of 2 specialisations of my company Sonologic. As you can see on the leaflet on the right, Sonologic is one of the sponsors of this event. It is a small chance to do something back for all those people that created and still maintain PostgreSQL. Hopefully, in the future I will be able to do even more!

At least the meeting has instilled some fresh enthousiasm in getting something like a DBPUG off the ground: a Dutch-Belgian PostgreSQL Usergroup. At the very least, i’ll be manning a PostgreSQL booth at T-Dose together with one or two other Dutch PostgreSQL enthousiasts. I must nog forget to ask whether I can take some leftover shirts and other swag to sell. But now, the talk about custom indexing with GiST indices is starting so time to log-off!

HAR2009 (see below) needs a good looking and strong graphical style for communicating what it stands for.

Some of you are probably very competent designers, or might know some. Thus, this ‘call for designs’!

The winning designer will get immortal fame and lots of kudo’s. Also, and this is with a lot of buts and maybes, but there might be some form of monetary compensation involved.

A good thing to keep in mind is print-ability, we want to be able to send it off to printers for t-shirts and the like.

Photos or high-color-depth images would work less for that, vector designs (svg, ai, eps) would be preferable.
The design will be used for:

• T-shirts
• Poster
• Flyers
• Websites
• On-site artwork

Licensing

We need to be able to use the design for merchandise, and papers should be able to print it.
We are currently thinking about cc-by-sa, so if you supply a design please take into consideration that some such license must be applied for the design to be usable for the event.

If you have questions or need some help to understand this requirement please do not hesitate to contact us at info@har2009.org

Submissions

Please put your design(s) on this wiki, preferably as a seperate page under the Design: namespace (eg, a page named Design:GmcsCoolDesign).

Make sure to include the page in the ‘Design Contest Entry’ category (by including the text ‘[[Category:Design Contest Entry]]’ in your page).

If you’re uncomfortable with the wiki, you may alternatively send your design to info@har2009.org.

It is not a problem if this is an jpg/png file as this will be for demonstration purposes only.

Deadline

The deadline for submissions is October 1st 2008, the ‘winner’ will be chosen by October 8th 2008.

Inspiration

Short event description

HAR2009 is an international conference where central themes are technology, society and (computer-) security. It is the 6th event in a series of succesfull events happening every 4 years.

Activities during the event are traditionally lectures and workshops in tents by international experts and new talent discussing recent developments. Starting with the first edition, when internet was not as omni-present as it is today, we had an in-promptu network with connection to the internet at the event.

Previous editions can be found at :

• 1989: Galactic Hacker Party
• 1993: Hacking at the End of the Universe
• 1997: Hacking In Progress
• 2001: Hackers At Large
• 2005: What The Hack

The design should incorporate or transfer the idea/image of

• Something that can be asociated with random/chaos/mess or random functions or sources;
• Something computer/hacker related;
• Maybe something in relation to the outdoors;
• Think colors, think HIP(’97), think woodstock.

No pirates!

The name har2009 will probably sound somewhat piratey, and since the internet pirate scene is mostly known as a bunch of music and movie “sharing” thiefs the HAR2009 theme should not be targeted at pirates. The tongue-in-cheek reference to pirates should be very implicit only in the three-letter acronym HAR.

Extra input (external links about what Random can be)

chaos, self-emerging properties, which describes the way these events work

— at random : without definite aim, direction, rule, or method

As it happens, i’m implicating myself as quite an important part of the organisation of har (the working title for now), and tonight we had our first meeting. At first, it seemed that a lot of people agreed that the event should happen (to quote Dutch hacker guru Rop Gonggrijp: ‘our events have been and continue to be important milestones in hacker culture and .. they serve as places in space and time for the hacker community to get together‘) but none were too inclined to spend some serious time on it.

Tonight, however, it turned out we have (in my eyes) enough critical mass to make this thing happen. A group of around 15 people got together, with some more not being able to make it on such short notice but very eager to join. Of those 15 a handful is really diving into this project, while others have pledged whatever time they can free. We have a nice mix of “old-timers” and “newbies”, people who have been around since hip or even before, and newbies who have jumped on the bandwagon around hal2001 (even though i had a subscription to hack-tic, my first event was hal2001 so i’m one of the newbies).

I’m glad we will have an event in 2009. I have been looking forward to it since 2005, although i didn’t fathom then the role i would take in this new event. Time is short though, slightly more than a year. The next weeks will be spent creating rough budget plans, scouting locations. And then there’s the program.

Although we only have been at it for 1.5 weeks now, people are mailing that they will come, want to volunteer and are happy that the event is being planned! We might not be the same people that organised it in 2005, 2001, 1997, etc.. (although that is not entirely true of course, some of us have been around from the very beginning), our hearts are with the event.

2009: Hacking At Random!

TWiki.NET (de commerciele variant) is als een tsunami over het opensource project TWiki.org gerold. TWiki.NET zou de community gaan versterken, maar vergat daarbij bestaande structuren te respecteren. Zonder blikken of blozen kwam de marketing-afdeling met leuzen waarin het werk van de vele mensen die in de loop der jaren aan TWiki bij hebben gedragen werd geclaimd als hun eigen.

De laatste release is versie 4.2, ruim een half jaar oud. Inmiddels zijn al flink wat bugs in deze release ontdekt, waarvan enkelen zelfs de veiligheid van een TWiki installatie in gevaar brengen. De langverwachte patch-versie, 4.2.1, wil maar niet komen. Het beste voorbeeld waarom je niet TWiki zou moeten gebruiken is de website van twiki zelf: de site is traag, onoverzichtelijk en volgens velen simpelweg lelijk. Ontwikkelaars van de kern van TWiki laten het afweten. De community valt uiteen.

Falende organisatie

Wie gaat graven in de historie van TWiki, door in de project-wiki op twiki.org zelf te kijken en met mensen die al jaren in het project zitten te spreken, komt er echter achter dat dit eigenlijk niets nieuws is. Het project hinkt al jaren op deze wijze voort. Slechts een handjevol programmeurs die de TWiki code hebben ontwikkeld en deze van binnen en van buiten kennen hebben het langer dan, zeg, 2 jaar volgehouden. Anderen liepen stuk op de machtsstructuur van het project. De paar oudgedienden kunnen uren verhalen over mensen die kwamen, afgestompt raakten en weer vertrokken.

Wat TWiki mist is een inspirerende leider. Wat TWiki heeft is een zelfbenoemde ‘benevolent dictator‘, een goedaardige dictator: oprichter Peter Thoeny. Op zich is er niets mis met een ‘benevolent dictator’. Veel open-source projecten kennen zo’n persoon: linux heeft Linus Torvalds, ubuntu heeft Mark Shuttleworth, PostgreSQL heeft Tom Lane, perl heeft Larry Wall, en ga zo maar door. Het grote verschil is dat zij respect hebben verdiend, dat zij mensen hebben weten te inspireren. Ik ben van mening dat wanneer je zelf moet stellen ‘ik ben de goedaardige dictator’, het predicaat ‘goedaardig’ niet meer van toepassing kán zijn.

Daarnaast, nu Peter Thoeny naast leider van TWiki.org ook grote financiele belangen heeft met TWiki.NET, begint de grens tussen beiden te vervagen. Daar komt bij dat Thoeny de enige link tussen de open-source community en het commerciele bedrijf is. Wie kijkt naar de publieke uitspraken van Thoeny over (in zijn perceptie) ‘tegenstanders’ moet vrezen voor het beeld dat medewerkers van TWiki.NET gepresenteerd krijgen van toegewijde leden van de open-source community. Met valse informatie worden ze zonder blikken of blozen zwartgemaakt.

Toekomst

Hoe ziet de toekomst er uit voor TWiki? De codebase van TWiki is complex. Nieuwe ontwikkelaars zullen dan ook een steile leercurve hebben als de oudgedienden het echt voor gezien houden. Intussen wordt druk gesproken over de machtskwestie, voor een groot deel van hen is het naar ieders tevredenheid oplossen daarvan een belangrijke voorwaarde om weer aan de slag te gaan. De discussie hierover verloopt echter moeizaam en zeer behoedzaam, kritiek kan eigenlijk nauwelijks geuit worden (had iemand het over dictatuur?).

Natuurlijk, TWiki.net kan ontwikkelaars inhuren of zelfs in dienst nemen. Een gelikte versie maken, waarvan een bruikbare maar minder gelikte versie als open-source wordt vrijgegeven. Het MySQL model. Op zich niets mis mee, maar het maakt het voor mij een stuk minder interessant om actief aan bij te dragen. En wie weet, zo af en toe valt het f-woord: een fork zou een uitweg kunnen bieden uit de huidige impasse. Ik zeg dat echter met enige reserve, omdat het opsplitsen van een project eigenlijk zelden tot goede resultaten leidt.

Gelukkig is TWiki, hoewel in potentie wel degelijk, niet uniek. Er zijn meerdere oplossingen voor de problemen waar TWiki een antwoord op is. Oplossingen die mischien op bepaalde gebieden krachtiger zijn dan TWiki, oplossingen die zeker gebruikersvriendelijker zijn dan TWiki. Hoewel ik het jammer zou vinden als TWiki zich niet zou ontwikkelen naar de belofte die het in zich heeft, heb ik de vrijheid een van de alternatieven in te zetten. Er zijn echter mensen die zich uitsluitend specialiseren op TWiki. Zij zijn danig de pineut wanneer TWiki het onderspit delft.

Ik denk dat de meest waarschijnlijke uitkomst het MySQL model is, waarbij de bestaande community wordt vervangen door een betaalde community. Maar het is natuurlijk heel goed mogelijk dat ik er, net als met mijn stuk op livre.nl, weer ver naast zit en het in de komende maanden toch nog goed komt. Ik heb er helaas een hard hoofd in.

En daar wordt je niet vrolijk van. Het is schokkend om te zien hoe Palestijnen te lijden hebben onder Israelische paranoia. De beruchte checkpoints bijvoorbeeld, waar 18 jarige knulletjes van het Israelische leger de ‘orde bewaken’. Palestijnen worden verplicht zich uit te kleden ten overstaan van 100-en mensen. Worden de soldaatjes zenuwachtig, dan kan het zo gebeuren dat je als Palestijn uit de rij wordt gepikt en uren aan marteling wordt onderworpen. Slaan dus, met stokken en geweren. Van die opgefokte ventjes, die ze hier in het parate peleton van de ME zouden stoppen, die ongestraft hun frustraties over de situatie waarin ze gewdongen verkeren afreageren.

Michel vertelt over de excessen, laat foto’s zien. Een school in een vluchtelingenkamp langs de beruchte muur (de apartheidsmuur, security fence, of hoe je hem ook wilt noemen), waar kinderen af en toe met steentjes naar een toren in de muur gooien. De soldaten in die torens schieten de kinderen gewoon dood. Zonder schroom. Pats, kogel door het hoofd.

Een Palestijnse stad, met midden in een Israelische enclave. Een ommuurde nederzetting. De Palestijnen die zich in de straten hieromheen wagen, moeten vrezen voor hun leven. De Israelis gooiden met bakstenen, totdat er netten boven de straten werden gespannen. Nu gooien ze met bijtende chemicalieen.

Het wonen in nederzettingen wordt bevorderd door flinke overheidskortingen op woonkosten. En als je je in een nederzetting vestigt, krijg je van de regering ook nog eens een geweer cadeau! Kun je lekker op Palestijnen schieten.

Ik kan er met mijn hoofd niet bij. Gewone mensen die een leven proberen op te bouwen, door te studeren of te werken. Dus niet van die stenengooiende relschoppers met Palestijnen-sjaaltjes, maar mensen zoals jij en ik. Ze worden geisoleerd, vernederd. Hun scholen worden platgebombardeerd, want wie leert metaalbewerken kan ook wapens produceren zo redeneert Israel! Waarom gedragen de Israeli’s zich zo beestachtig? Ik wordt er kwaad om.

Ze zijn bang, en weten uit angst niet meer wat ze moeten doen. Ze schieten maar in het rond, denken dat als ze alle Palestijnen uitmoorden, genocide, ze dan niet meer bang hoeven te zijn. En zo creeeren ze hun eigen vijand, een self-fullfilling prophecy. Want een heel volk uitmoorden, dat lukt niet. En degenen die overblijven, zijn kwaad en willen gerechtigheid (of worst-case: wraak).

Ik wil niet uitvlakken, dat er ook Palestijnen zijn die Israeli’s kwaad willen doen. Door zelfmoordaanslagen. Maar de reactie van Israel op dit gevaar is buiten alle proporties, krankzinnig en ontzettend zinloos.

Is er een uitweg? Er zijn initiatieven om Palestijnen en Israeli’s dichter bij elkaar te brengen. Zoals breaking the silence, waar Israelische soldaten een boekje open doen over de misstanden en schendingen van mensenrechten die zij zelf hebben meegemaakt. Maar zolang de Israelische regering de haat in stand blijft houden, zie ik het helaas somber in.

Michel (en zijn medereizigers) moeten als tegenprestatie voor de gratis reis ieder 150 mensen in persoon over hun ervaringen vertellen. Ik kan iedereen aanraden, om ze uit te nodigen! De foto’s, de beelden, de verhalen, het wordt een realiteit in plaats van een newsitem op het acht uur journaal.

Een uitgelezen gelegenheid dus om onze GroenLinks werkgroep open source software onder de aandacht te brengen. Ik zelf kon echter geen tafel bemensen, ik was uitgenodigd om een lezing te komen geven over open search. Daarnaast moest ik ’s ochtends nog meehelpen met de organisatie van het culturele weekend in de wijk waar het pandje van GroenLinks Den Haag zich bevindt.

Mijn praatje over open search werd goed ontvangen, en ik heb wat leuke nieuwe contacten opgedaan. Bij binnenkomst (of eigenlijk nog voordat ik binnen kwam) werd ik reeds gekaapt door de cameraploeg van source21.nl (die voor de gelegenheid weer in actie kwamen, officieel zijn zij niet meer actief). Zij hebben mij geinterviewd over open search, maar ook over de werkgroep open source van GroenLinks.

Ik vond het een hele gezellige middag, ook al was ik er maar eventjes. Veel mensen gesproken, bekenden en nieuwe bekenden. Er was ook gelegenheid tot CACERT assurance, dus ik heb weer even flink punten gescoord. Daarnaast nog een enkele PGP key fingerprint uitgewisseld om te tekenen.

Op 1 december 2007 zal ik weer een praatje houden voor de NLLGG, deze keer over open source en de politieke context. Ongetwijfeld zal ik dan stilstaan bij het rapport van de staatsecretaris over open source en de concrete plannen, dat wordt naar horen en zeggen op 12 december namelijk behandeld in het algemeen overleg van de cie. economische zaken.