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Today I wrote a guest post on Publicaddress about ACTA, the secret treaty that could take away your right to an Internet connection. It’s all being driven by overseas lobbyists, and they have quite a number of countries negotiating a treaty to force draconian laws on all of us.

This isn’t idle scaremongering. The previous government showed it was quite willing to give the right to cut off your Internet connection to appease a handful of unaccountable industry lobby groups, and the current government is negotiating an international treaty to guarantee it.

You don’t have to put up with this. Just say no. Write to your MP. Write to the responsible Minister, Simon Power. Or write to John Key. Tell them: you wouldn’t cut off the power to a household whose neighbours said it played music too loud. And you can’t cut off the Internet for a house where someone has been accused of downloading a song. And tell them that New Zealand doesn’t need its Internet damaged – and New Zealanders don’t deserve to have their rights curtailed – to suit the needs of a very few companies.

Today I’m talking at the Engaging Your Community conference at Massey University in Wellington. I’m going to asking and answering questions like “where did the Internet come from?” and “why is it uniquely suited for community use?”. I’ll look at posting a version of my speaker notes here soon.

When I was writing this presentation, what struck me most was that the values that have made the Internet successful – openness, thrift, lack of centralised ownership – are exactly those you find in community organisations. It’s no coincidence that the Internet grew to dominate the online world, rather than the privately-owned Compuserve or Prodigy.

I’m hoping to meet a lot of engaged and enthusiastic people at the session today. Perhaps I’ll see you there!

There is an utterly heart-rending scene in Miranda Harcourt’s autobiographical play A Biography of my Skin in which their family computer’s disc crashes and they lose all their family photographs.

Today on Radio New Zealand National I’ll talk about how to keep your computer backed up. It’s not a hard thing to do. I’ll also have a few other tidbits from the world of technology.

I’ll be on air after the 11am news, and soon afterwards the you’ll be able to download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

Two interesting things came out of Washington DC in the last couple of days – both endorsements of free software by Uncle Sam.

In the more widely published of the two announcements, the Whitehouse has gone to the free and open source Drupal content management system, replacing the commercial one installed some years ago. All the Whitehouse websites including whitehouse.gov have been changed over.

There are stories like this one about the move all over the web. The reasons the Whitehouse staff give are that they are moving to modern, state-of-the-art platform that will allow them a lot more flexibility in how they engage with citizens. They also expect greater security of the software through the open source development model.

In the other story, the US Department of Defense has just issued a policy statement (pdf) telling all its component parts that they should be seriously evaluating open source alternatives. The reasons they give are reduced cost of ownership (well, d’oh!), better security, and that the ability to modify the software gives them the chance to alter it to meet their changing needs.

The DoD also takes aim at that hoary old chestnut, the notion that the GPL might somehow force a company that was was altering free software for its own internal needs to republish the resulting source code. The company can chose to do that, but it absolutely doesn’t have to, unless it wants to distribute software outside the organization.

The real story here is not that open source software is being more widely used, and used by some famous and influential people. It’s that free software released under the GPL – as Drupal is – is more than acceptable for government work; it’s positively encouraged for its low cost, high security, and flexibility.

To close – I’ll alter a slogan published by Data General when IBM entered its main market:

People are saying that the US Government’s endorsement of free software will legitimise it. The bastards say: Welcome!

It’s a really exciting time in the development of New Zealand’s mobile phone networks. We now have two different 3G network available to 97% of the country. Choice!

I’ll be talking about this and more on Radio New Zealand National after the news today. You can read on for my speaking notes, or after the programme you can download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

Today on Radio New Zealand National I’ll talk about how computers are programmed. Getting started may be easier than you think! There’s a conference for may favourite language, Python, in Christchurch next month. And, as usual, I’ll have a few other nuggets from the world of technology.

You can listen in live after the 11am news, or after the broadcast you can download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has publicly apologised to Alan Turing, saying that his treatment was “appalling”. Quite.

Alan Matheson Turing was a British mathematician and Word War II codebreaker. He was the main person responsible the British ability to read the German Enigma codes. His contribution may well have saved Britain from being starved into submission by U-boat packs and so of losing the war. His work, without doubt, saved many lives. But, because of the heavy secrecy about it, most people had never heard of him until late last century.

Turing was a very unconventional character. He was gay, but made little attempt to hide. He was convicted after the war of gross public indecency – i.e. of having sex with a consenting male partner in private – and forced to undergo repeated injections of female hormones in some kind of bizarre attempt at chemical castration. He committed suicide two years later.

It’s about time that Britain faces up to how badly Turing was treated, and for that matter how badly other gay men have been treated over the years. Gordon Brown’s apology is fulsome, as it should be, but long overdue.

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talk about copyright matters again – about whether the proposed Google Book Settlement is a black hole or cultural opportunity for the whole world. And why music companies want to grossly exaggerate the number of illegal downloads.

You can listen live after the 11am news, read on for my speaking notes, or after the broadcast you’ll be able to download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talk about Software Freedom Day, what it’s celebrating and how you can enjoy it. There will be events in several parts of the country.

The site for the Wellington event is here, the Waikato one here, and if you know of others please put them into the comments.

I’ll be on just after the 11am news. Listen live, or after the broadcast you’ll be able to download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

This Dilbert cartoon.