What is Lundy doing at Software Freedom Day?

Sam Varghese
Friday, 17 September 2010 13:11

Opinion and Analysis

On Saturday, September 18, Melbourne will mark Software Freedom Day, a day observed worldwide to spread the message of free and open source software.

It's somewhat coincidental that in the week leading up to this, the man who is the inspiration for this day, Richard Matthew Stallman, was in Melbourne.

The irony is that the celebrations in Melbourne will strike a discordant note. For it is here that politicians - who do little for the cause of freedom in either software or anything else - are being allowed to parade their agenda.

The list of speakers for the Melbourne celebrations, being held at the State Library of Victoria from 11am to 4pm, includes a talk on "Government 2.0" (whatever that means) by Labor Senator Kate Lundy and Pia Waugh, her ICT policy adviser.

There are no details available about the talk at the time of writing but it seems ludicrous to allow government flunkeys a platform to spruik their wares on a day like this.

I spent an hour with Stallman this week and also listened to him speak on copyright issues; one of his quotes has stayed with me: "From being a government of the people, by the people and for the people, we have become a government of the people, by the flunkeys and for the corporations."

I'm not sure what the Labor government has done to advance the cause of software freedom. If it has done anything, then it has definitely managed to keep everyone else unaware of its valuable contribution.