Benj's tavern

L'assembl�e nationale l�galise l'�change de fichiers sur Internet

bdrieu@april.org — Thu Dec 22 2005 02:05

Contre toute attente et apr�s un d�bat tr�s mal parti, les amendements 153 et 154, d�pos�s par des d�put�s UMP et PS ont �t� adopt�s par l'assembl�e nationale. Ces amendements d�finissent une � licence l�gale optionnelle, � qui l�galise le t�l�chargement de fichiers sur Internet aux utilisateurs s'�tant acquitt�s d'une licence mensuelle (de l'ordre de quelques euros). Pouss�s par le PS et le PCF et d�savou�s par les groupes UMP et UDF, ces amendements ont �t� adopt�s � une courte majorit�.

Inutile de dire que ces amendements renversent totalement le rapport de force�: d'une part c'est un camouflet pour un ministre de la culture et le rapporteur, d�savou�s par leur propre majorit�. C'est d'autant plus int�ressant de voir que les d�put�s UMP n'ont pas suivi les consignes de vote de leur groupe (en particulier, merci � Mme Boutin, MM Le Fur et Suguenot). D'autre part, bien qu'� mon sens tr�s perfectibles, ces amendements rendent inop�rants certains aspects liberticides de la loi DADVSI. Ils permettent en outre d'orienter le d�bat au niveau d'autres points aussi importants.

Finalement, l'optimisme de Christian Perrier �tait de mise, une bataille est gagn�e. Pas encore la guerre, ces amendements peuvent encore �tre r�-amend�s et le d�bat est loin d'�tre termin�. Il nous faut donc rester vigilants.

Heading to the parliament

bdrieu@april.org — Tue Dec 20 2005 19:20

As Christian said in a very nice summary of the issue, this is the day the DADVSI law (which is a transposition of the EUCD, the European DMCA) will be examined by French parliament.

I would really like to share Christian's optimism. So far, the EUCD.INFO initiative succeeded in bringing the issue to the public (120k signatures, mostly from French residents) and to several MP. Good news are that a lot of amendments has been submitted to mitigate effects of the DADVSI law.

Bad news is that we also had terrible press cover: we had articles in most national newspapers and TV, but a lot of them are completely missing the point and are comparing us to champions of piracy against copyright. Even worse, Christian Vanneste (conservative MP responsible of the law) keeps spreading lies.

Today, members of the EUCD.INFO initiative went to the parliament to talk to MP and to show their concerns. Some friends and I went too even if we were just there to watch the debate. I'm quite disappointed to see that left wing was totally absent (like less than 10 MP out of 160!). Right wing was more represented but MP supporting our amendments are a minority group.

Debate starts again at 21 local time. We will be there and I hope I'm wrong, but I really fear we loose more than we gain.

CVS rulez (Score:-1, Flamebait)

bdrieu@april.org — Wed Dec 14 2005 13:53

As it seems people are arguing about the revision systems hype, I just wanted to point that CVS rulez. Sure, it does not $some_obscure_witty_feature but, hey, is this feature really useful?

I've been using CVS for ten years, coded around 500k source line of code and honestly, it suits all my needs. To tell the truth, I don't even use all of its capabilities.

So, CVS can't keep history of a file when you move it. Big deal? After all, renaming a file is just like creating a brand new one. Leave a commit message stating previous name of foo is bar if you really need history and that is it. So far, I never stumbled upon a case where this "feature" limited me or made me loose more than 15 seconds.

Same for distributed RCS. Sure, on the paper they look good. Call me a moron but I never managed to use one properly. Even a large but well managed project does not need such monstruosity.

Matthew is right on one point: RCS are like languages, geeks advocate languages because of a specific subset of features. But they don't realize 90% of functionality of a language is present in all other languages and the 10 other percents can be achieved with method if you really need them.

I personally find very discouraging to learn a brand new RCS for every project I contribute to if upstream has decided this one is cool. If you want users to contribute, use a standard RCS as well as a standard mailing-list system, common language, etc.