On Tue, 2002-08-13 at 05:35, Russell McOrmond wrote: > By the way, I don't think the "is it the same in Canada" needs an > answer, partly because I don't agree with the article. The activism that > many "geeks" have been involved in has been much more effective than this > article suggested. Even my letter to the CRTC > <http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=223> has been circulated in > other departments who have been interested in the ideas it presented. > > I too don't agree with the article completely. It's just too negative.
The Canadian Federal Government has a history of listening to vocal minorities from time to time as long as big business doesn't pull their purse strings the other way. I guess the safest example is the vocal minority in Quebec who have earned themselves a couple of separation referendums. I think in some cases, Ottawa is like a rebellious child compared to Washington's Parental Supervision. They trade with Cuba, allow medicinal use of weed, and signed the Kyoto Accord. All things that in someway fly in the face of American Domestic and Foreign Policy. Yet a Canadian version of the DMCA has been talked about. The copying tax on blank media raised. I also heard a year or so ago that the Canadian government had set a policy that this windows (occasionally unix) encryption package was to be used for secure email. Yet linux is making in roads into government and educational research. Hugh CFI grants are going to Universities to purchase Beowulf clusters. Government research labs buy Linux Servers and Samba file servers because they get more bang for their buck. So the article is right about making a better product. It does work. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
