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David A. Wheeler Reports Back from FISL 6.0 Conference in Brazil
Saturday, July 09 2005 @ 09:26 PM EDT

David A. Wheeler has posted the most interesting and enjoyable travelogue, all about his trip to Brazil to attend the 6th International Free Software Conference (FISL 6.0).

I noted several things that interested me, like his impression of Peter Quinn, CIO of the Commonwealth of Massachusett, who presented at the conference, his noting that there were more women in attendance ("Women Have Arrived" is one header) and why, Ted Tso's explanation of Linux file systems and why ext3 is so popular, and the reasons why Brazilians love FOSS. He explains it this way:

The point is that Brazilian government and industry view OSS/FS quite differently from most in the United States. For many Brazilians, OSS/FS was essentially an opportunity to regain nationa sovereignty or company control over their own infrastructure, instead of allowing an external company (and a foreign one at that) t maintain total control and visibility over their internal infrastructure. There also appeared to be significant concerns about transparency as reason why OSS/FS was so strongly preferred -- one speaker said something like “Governments need to know what happens in thei networks, so they need to audit their code, so it [must?] be public source.”

Several government ministries had large booths related to OSS/FS, along with the usual corporate, vendor, non-profit organizations, and project booths. There was a LinuxChix booth. The Debian guys had a "Goodbye Woody" party. Cute. But what stood out to me most was this:

I believe there’s a strong similarity in many ways in how lawyers and softwar developers think; both fields work to gain precision in language, and require thinking through consequence in a logical fashion. James Grimmelmann has a series of articles that illustrates some of the similaritie between legal thinking and how a software developer would think (it’s called “Law School in a Nutshell” - see Part I, Part II, and Part III).

Other things may strike you as more interesting, but I'm sure you will not be bored. Wheeler is never boring, and he misses no details it seems. His talk was on "Why OSS/FS? Look at the Numbers!" and you can read a written version here. I really enjoyed his travelogue and wanted to share it with you right away. In fact, I haven't even finished reading it yet, so if he ends the account with an ad for Microsoft or SCO or something, I'm not responsible.

It's a joke. He wouldn't.




  


David A. Wheeler Reports Back from FISL 6.0 Conference in Brazil | 54 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Off topic here please
Authored by: fudisbad on Saturday, July 09 2005 @ 09:54 PM EDT
For current events, legal filings and Caldera® collapses.

Please make links clickable.
Example: <a href="http://example.com">Click here</a>

---
See my bio for copyright details re: this post.
Darl McBride, show your evidence!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Spoiler-No Microsoft or SCOG Ads
Authored by: Weeble on Saturday, July 09 2005 @ 10:08 PM EDT
I skipped down to the bottom; no ads for Microsoft, SCOG
or anything else for that matter.

Though I'll say there's an interesting paragraph where Jon
"Maddog" Hall shuts up some spoiled brats from Microsoft.
Beauty in a single sentence.

---
You Never Know What You're Going to Learn--or Learn About--on Groklaw!
(NOTE: Copying Permissions Are Stated in My Profile Bio)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections here please
Authored by: Briareus on Saturday, July 09 2005 @ 10:54 PM EDT
Corrections here please

---
scary times are never dull

[ Reply to This | # ]

Precision in Language
Authored by: Carlo Graziani on Saturday, July 09 2005 @ 11:31 PM EDT
I believe there's a strong similarity in many ways in how lawyers and softwar developers think; both fields work to gain precision in language, and require thinking through consequence in a logical fashion. James Grimmelmann has a series of articles that illustrates some of the similarities between legal thinking and how a software developer would think...

I have noticed the affinity between language use in law and in the sciences. In scientific papers, seminars, and even casual conversations on scientific topics it is not uncommon to observe people working extremely hard to craft very precise sentences. There's a premium in science in saying exactly what you want to say, and no more. Casual observation of language use in legal circles quickly reveals the same extreme stress on precision.

It hadn't occurred to me to include programmers as a class of people who use language as a precision tool, though. I guess I don't talk to enough of them about what they do.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Thanks for the pointer
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, July 10 2005 @ 04:55 AM EDT
CrazyEnginner

[ Reply to This | # ]

David Wheeler Reports Back from FISL 6.0 Conference in Brazil
Authored by: egan on Sunday, July 10 2005 @ 06:12 AM EDT
Wheeler's paper "Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the Numbers!" is available here.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Simply amazing....
Authored by: tiger99 on Sunday, July 10 2005 @ 07:28 AM EDT
It is simply amazing what good stuff you can read about on Groklaw. This in particular shows that the world really needs FOSS. They can't afford anything else, nor do they want to lose their freedom and be enslaved to a Criminal Monopoly which the US legal system has failed miserably, as yet, to bring under control. The developed world, notably the US, and the UK (we are improperly allowing software patents for a start), will simply lose software business, and jobs, to the developing world, unless we match this. But if our leaders, whether business or political, do waken up and adopt FOSS, (like IBM and a few more) no-one in any country, anywhere, will lose, except the monopolists, who are simply outlaws and ought not to receive any consideration at all.

Thank you very much, PJ, for posting this. It really is nice to see forward-looking, positive and enthusiastic people doing something creative. Makes a welcome change from SCO and certain specific individuals that we don't want to mention by name, lest we give them any publicity.

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Hear hear - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, July 10 2005 @ 08:42 AM EDT
    • Hear hear - Authored by: rc on Thursday, July 14 2005 @ 07:01 PM EDT
Top 10 Copyright Crimes
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, July 10 2005 @ 10:55 AM EDT

Go to the "Law School in a Nutshell" site, then click
on the side panel "Top 10 Copyright Crimes."

The Turner guy is truly a man after Darl's heart.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Peter Quinn - The Policy, Planning and Pragmatic Reasons for the Massachusetts
Authored by: jto on Sunday, July 10 2005 @ 10:56 AM EDT

Peter Quinn (who is the CIO, not CTO) for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts gave an excellent presentation on their move to Open Source at the Government CIO Open Summit in Ottawa on June 16. A copy of his presentation is available at http://www.lancementsuse.ca/t iki-index.php?

---
Regards, JTO

[ Reply to This | # ]

lawyers
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, July 10 2005 @ 04:27 PM EDT
" I believe there’s a strong similarity in many ways in how lawyers and
softwar developers think;"

I think that explains a lot of why groklaw has been such a success.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Thanks for kind words, women's involvement
Authored by: dwheeler on Sunday, July 10 2005 @ 10:30 PM EDT
First, my thanks to all of your for your kind and incredibly receptive response to my travelogue. I'm glad so many of you enjoyed it!

Second, I've gotten interesting (and conflicting!) comments about my section on how so many more women are involved in Brazil. All agree that women have become more involved, but who caused that change and why seems to be controversial. I think that's important, because the Brazilians seem to be overcoming an important problem, and it can't be duplicated elsewhere until it's understood. I've modified my travelogue so that the final two paragraphs of the section "Women have arrived!" reads like this:


After reading my original travelogue, Pablo Lorenzzoni told me that this massive (by comparison) participation of women in Brazil is largely due to to PSL-Mulheres (Projecto Software Livre-Mulheres, or Free Software Project-Women). PSL-Mulheres is a collateral project of PSL-Brasil. But after I added this information to my travelogue, I got a heated response that the credit for Brazil’s amazing response really goes to LinuxChix BR; one email (sent to me on 2005-07-10) specifically noted Sulamita Garcia (of LinuxChix BR) as being especially effective and key to this.

So the big question is: how did this occur? Why are so many women involved in Brazil, when this is still relatively rare in many other countries? I don’t know, and since I wasn’t there and I don’t speak Portuguese, I’m the wrong person to find out. I suspect that the story is a complex one, involving many different people and different organizations (including LinuxChix BR and PSL-Mulheres). But I really hope that someone digs in, does the research, and figures out that complex story. Maybe that research has already been done. I hope to see that research, because those who managed to achieve this result deserve a great deal of credit and honor. And there’s another reason to do this research; the problem of poor female participation in IT and OSS/FS is widespread. Somehow, the Brazilians are overcoming it; Brazil could easily become a model for the rest of the world to follow.

[ Reply to This | # ]

U.S. does not have control here
Authored by: clark_kent on Monday, July 11 2005 @ 02:13 PM EDT
"..instead of allowing an external company (and a foreign one at that) t
maintain total control and visibility over their internal infrastructure."

(I am a U.S. citizen stating these opinions)

This would be one reason why the current U.S. administration would not like
FOSS. Our dominant U.S. company (Microsoft) does not have influence where is
does not have control, thus, the U.S. government has less control. And I am sure
George does not like that. Why do you think Microsoft is an illegal monopoly
existing today full and vibrant? Because they wield power and money and I say
U.S. government policy has sold out to special interests in favor of True
Democracy, and Microsoft is only one small part of a very large problem with the
U.S. government... where is it's loyalty.. to Truth, Justice, and the welfare of
it's people, or money?

I say, you can't have True Democracy and a Monachy at the same time as true as
you can't have darkness if the light is on.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Programmers and Lawyers and Patents
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 11 2005 @ 04:57 PM EDT
Yes... now imagine if someone told a lawyer he could not use a particular tactic
or strategy in a case because someone owned a patent over it.

THAT is precisely the problem with software patents.

They stop people from solving the same problem in similar ways, even if they
never heard of the other's solution before. The thing is, we all use the same
tools, and math plays by the same rules, so there's really very little room for
creativity when it comes to the level of abstraction that software patents use.
Creativity, in programming, is covered by copyright and algorithms. Algorithms,
being math, are still not protectable.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Huh?
Authored by: ENOTTY on Tuesday, July 12 2005 @ 05:12 PM EDT
There was a LinuxChix booth. The Debian guys had a "Goodbye Woody" party.

In Brazil, no less. Doesn't compute. ;)

[ Reply to This | # ]

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