I was interviewed for a CHUT radio show called L'heure est au libre that airs from 11:00-11:30 on Mondays. The archive for the show aired Monday January 8, 2007 are online.

CLUE presented our copyright policy summary to officials at Heritage Canada on December 1, 2006. The proposals include a support for a living "Fair Use" model, as well as an opposition to laws which protect specific brands of technology rather than protecting creativity.

There is quite a bit of talk about the Microsoft-Novell deal, Oracle's support for RedHat Linux, Sun's release of Java as FLOSS using the GNU GPL, and many other Linux and Open Source stories. They got me to thinking: We don't know which strategies being carried out by various companies are likely to succeed in the marketplace, but we do know that whoever wins they can't help but be part of the Linux/FLOSS ecosystem.

This October 30th, 2006 issue of the Hill Times includes 3 letters to the editor in response to Canadian Recording Industry Association lobbyist Barry Sookman's opinion piece titled "Copyright reform: let the light shine in". The last of these letters is from me, and ends by noting that "The letter-writer is policy coordinator for Canada's Association for Open Source".

CLUE supporters might ask what Telecommunications Policy has to do with Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS), and why I would be at the Alternative Telecommunications Policy Forum. My interest in FLOSS came out of my interest in community networking where networks and the software that controls them are decentrally controlled. It turns out that many of the recent and most controversial "copyright" related policies that threaten FLOSS, such as anti-circumvention policy (legal protection for DRM, DMCA, 1996 WIPO treaties), is also a derivative of telecommunications policy discussions, but with the opposite vision of these networks.

On October 12, 2006, the Supreme Court of Canada released a decision in a case first launched in 1996 by Heather Robertson, a freelance journalist, and Thompson Corporation, the then-owner of the Globe and Mail. (Citation: Robertson v. Thomson Corp., 2006 SCC 43)

Today I received two pieces of information. One was my copy of Computerworld in which there was an article about how Michigan aims to emulate Canadaś e-gov. The second piece of information was in a note from Russell McOrmond about the slow response to petitioning against Bill C-60.

Education Ministers' Copyright Proposal Needs a Rewrite - As thousands of children across the province return to school tomorrow, nearly everyone will be asking "what did you do this summer?" If the question were posed to Education Minister Sandra Pupatello, her candid reply might be that she was working with her fellow Provincial Ministers of Education on reforms that will have damaging consequences on Internet use in Canada.