German Linux Community Boycotting LinuxTag

em8chel writes "LinuxTag, Germany's major fair for Linux and Free Software, is facing a massive boycott from open source enthusiasts in the country this year. Although the event doesn't open for a week, the community is voicing their anger and disappointment on various forums about this year's LinuxTag running under the auspices of Wolfgang Schaeuble, the conservative Minister of Interior, whose positions on issues of interest to the community are controversial to say the very least. Due to online protests and calls for a boycott, the organizer of LinuxTag has released a statement (German version, serviceable Google translation), holding that the politician's policies and political views have nothing to do with supporting free software, adding that if the community boycotts LinuxTag, it's the open source software that will be hit the hardest, and that Schaeuble probably won't even notice."

Political albatross

[by Anonymous Coward]

Considering Schäuble supported the invasion of Iraq by the United States, I can understand why many would not want to be associated with him. Then last month Schäuble said guilty until proven innocent is the way criminal jurisprudence should work. Sounds like this guy is kooky.

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

More scared shitless. Still, either is no mental state I would want a politician in, how do you expect him to make level headed, sensible decisions for your country?

Re:Political albatross

[saibot834 (1061528)]

Many civil rights activists in Germany are alarmed because of his proposals to stop the assumption of innocence when there is a chance to prevent acts of terrorism [1] [wikipedia.org]. Civil rights activist see him as an enemy of the German constitution, as he is a strong supporter of telecommunications data retention [wikipedia.org] and overall surveillance.
His views on invasion of Iraq was quite "normal"; his party, the CDU [wikipedia.org] was supporting it.

In other news.

[Spazntwich (208070)]

Half of Microsoft is reported drowned in a torrent of schadenfreude.

Re:

[Wolfger (96957)]

Where's the tracker for that torrent?

Seems Silly.

[Erris (531066)]

I might as well boycot Debian because it's under the auspices of GWB. Is this Wolfgang Schaeuble guy trying to taking credit for or promote free software? I'd be so very happy with GWB for the same that I might forgive him for the invasion of Iraq. Back in reality, one has nothing to do with the other.

The best way to defeat your enemies is to make them into friends.

Re:Seems Silly.

[Opportunist (166417)]

There are some people I don't want as friends.

I can understand where this security-craze he's in comes from. Maybe I'd react similar if I was nearly shot. He's terrified. He sees terrorists and assassins everywhere, and he wants to protect himself and his country from them. It makes sense. And actually I do even feel pity for him.

Usually, though, such people seek professional help, not a political career. When you look at his recent decisions and law suggestions, it doesn't border anymore on paranoia, it's way beyond that border.

Re:

[headkase (533448)]

And boycotts are for withholding your money from companies that care about the bottom line. Linux is free and based on mutual benefit through cooperation so by not using every opportunity to refine the community in-general - such as the LinuxTag event - the boycott actually detracts from the very qualities that make open-source so nice.

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

The distraction already started with inviting a politician that's anything but interested in freedom and cooperation.

I mean, could you see GWB as the patron for the annual meeting of the world peace league?

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

Hey, one may dream, ok?

Re:

[Nutria (679911)]

world peace league

It's the pipe dream of the deluded do-gooder.

Boycott schmoycott

[by Anonymous Coward]

Those with a stake in open source software will attend, the rest doesn't matter. Schaeuble won't even be there, so there is no chance for a confrontation, which is probably a good thing, because Wolfgang Schaeuble is a red rag to many technology-minded people in Germany. He's the one pushing for the storing of all connection metadata, putting fingerprints in RFID passports and lots more which limits freedom just by making people feel watched all the time. How they didn't consider that when they made him patron of the LinuxTag is beyond me, but a boycott is just not going to happen.

To give you an idea who this is

[Opportunist (166417)]

Wolfgang Schäuble had the "bright" idea to have the law enforcement in Germany develop a trojan and infect the computer of suspects (and he's pushing strongly to make the requirements to use it rather lenient), and is also one of the main pushers behind the recent law that connections via phone or internet have to be recorded (not the content, "only" the location of the participant (in case of cellphones), endpoints and so on, to identify who talked with whom, when and from where).

I can well understand why people wouldn't want to be in the same convention with him. Actually, I can't figure out why anyone would want to have him near, unless following the old saying "keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer".

Re:To give you an idea who this is

[PopeRatzo (965947)]

Sometimes, despicable people will try to gain credibility by associating themselves with an honorable institution. We see it with radical Right Wingers in the US associating themselves with Jesus Christ even though old JC would probably have put his size 9 sandal up the crack of their asses.

Take this Falwell monster who just croaked. He had no problem rubbing bellies with death squads and dictators in Central and South America and apartheid leaders, and then turning around and acting holy at a prayer breakfast with Presidents who were too scared of his well-fed, smug and judgmental ass to throw him the fuck out like they should have. Did you see all the Republican presidential candidates falling over themselves trying to compare him to Ghandi and Martin Luther King?

I'm just guessing, but I've got a feeling that about 10 seconds after he died, he got the shock of his life when instead of seeing St. Peter, he met the dude with hooves. I'm hoping it was the South Park version of Satan, too.

If the Linux community boycotts LinuxTag, it's not going to hurt them one bit. In fact, standing up for what's right could make a lot of people take notice of them, especially with moral courage being in such short supply these days.

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

Falwell would have a fit when you compared him to Martin Luther King... Then again, who cares?

Re:

[IgnoramusMaximus (692000)]

When Falwell died, and his brain stopped working, his consciousness ended. It ceased to be. If his thoughts were like music on a cassette tape, then the tape ended... and not just to silence, it stopped as if it never existed. No amount of faith in today's religion can change that, haha.

To be fair and to hold to the principles of science we simply cannot say that with certainty. What you just did is the exact same thing all the religious people do, i.e. you made an absolute claim in the absence of conclus

Some details

[tmk (712144)]

It was not the idea of Schaeuble - he does not know a thing about computers. The idea comes from the Federal police in Germany, the "Bundeskriminalamt".

The Intelligence service "Verfassungsschutz" in Germany have the legal authority to search computers online yet - but they lack the technical ability. Some details about online searches leaked into the public.

One time they tried to infect a suspects PC with a Trojan on a CD-ROM. Unfortunately they distributed to many of the CDs until the eavesdropping

Trojan on CD-ROM

[cpghost (719344)]

One time they tried to infect a suspects PC with a Trojan on a CD-ROM.

What's wrong with distributing genuine Windows XP install media?

Yep. That makes perfect sense.

[by Anonymous Coward]

There's no point being politically active if the target of your activism probably won't even notice. May as well just put up with it and get on with your life.

Wrong.

Anyone with money invested in the event will notice, and I'm sure the backlash from the grass roots users will convince them they should rethink their associations in future. seeing they are the people with the money, they are the only people who can make the Minister notice.

Figures in power are directly unreachable to the common man, but we can impact on them indirectly.

From the linux community to the interior minister:
Nuts!

Oh wait...

[Howitzer86 (964585)]

I went ahead and read about this guy and his party. My first thought was "hey, he doesn't seem to bad".

My second thought was, "Oh wait, I'm in America, I've been desensitized."

Wrong reaction

[ericferris (1087061)]

That's just a politician who wants to generate PR by attending an event that contains lots of buzzwords ("this Linux thingy and these computers and technology, that's trendy, let's attend"). But he doesn't own the LinuxTag. By staging a boycott, the German OSS crowd gives him a de facto ownership of the event.

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

What's it good for if you "own" an event and nobody shows up? It's about the worst you can do to a politician, avoid an event not despite him being there but BECAUSE. Can you see the headlines of next day's news? People avoiding an event they've been waiting for for a year, just because a certain politician was there? The antipathy towards this person being even stronger than their love for their hobby?

With a bit of luck, he'll even become unbearable for his party. And that can only be beneficial for German

Re:

[ericferris (1087061)]

Hey, I'm sympathetic to the protesters. Once, I was manning a stand at a computer show, and I walked out when the mayor of the city showed up among cameras and flashes. I waiting for him to be gone. But notice that I ignored him, I didn't gve him control of the whole show. So I understand the motives, but I do believe that the stategy is misguided. For the boycott to be successful, it will have to be complete. We'll see. If the boycott is not complete, LinuxTag will be Schaeuble's event, And if it fails,

Re:Wrong reaction

[cp.tar (871488)]

Actually, you just gave me an idea...

What about making a game out of it?
Avoid the Moron, it should be called.
Post lookouts for him; then, when he arrives, make sure there's nobody within 10 metres from him.
When he approaches a stand, everyone clears; who cannot clear, hides.
Hell, put up "Closed due to moron proximity" signs on stands when he approaches.

And make sure it's all recorded.

good reaction

[someone1234 (830754)]

The real owners of LinuxTag should have thought it before.
They still can remedy the situation, cancel the guy's invitation :)

I'd still boycott it to set a sign.

[bursch-X (458146)]

How would you like it to hear stuff like:

This surveillance camera and its motion detector was brought to you by Linux!
Or BigBrother 2007, it can't be evil, it's all open source!

I don't want this fucker (Schäuble) to be associated with anything FOSS.

Re:I'd still boycott it to set a sign.

[zappepcs (820751)]

I don't know if it's just me, but lately there seem to be a lot of people around the world that are making their voices heard either via the Internet or boycotts etc. This is nothing but a good thing, and I hope that the German people are able to send a message loud enough to be heard by all concerned.

Mr Orwell's Big Brother and F/OSS really don't need to be friends...

Re:

[kestasjk (933987)]

I'd rather not have any software monitor me, but if I was going to have a piece of software monitor me I'd rather I was able to check out its source and see exactly what is being monitored that just have a black box and have to take the word of the authors.

You have to anyway

[Opportunist (166417)]

Unless a machine is running under your directions, you have to take the word of the person owning or running it. Even if you can see the source, you have no way to determine whether it's the source of the program running. So what difference does it make? They could well show you one source and have a completely different binary running.

Yes, I do not trust our politicians.

Re:

[bky1701 (979071)]

...More reason to want FOSS to have nothing to do with BB; it may make some feel somewhat better about it. If someone is going to spy on people, I don't want those spied on to be comforted in the fact it's "open source"; they should never be comforted by anything relating to Big Bother.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

More reason to want FOSS to have nothing to do with BB

I think that misses the point. Once you put out an idea, you cannot control what others do with it. You can try to be as far as you want from your opponent, whether you give away or sell your idea or product, you lose control of how it is used and for what it is used. In some ways, GPL does force changes to be released (assuming it's from an organization in a country that respects copyright laws), but that usually doesn't work for custom userland soft

Re:

[cpghost (719344)]

I'd rather not have any software monitor me

Well, I would, but only if it's the kind of software that saves lives. Like most programmers, I'm working at night and alone. Should I get a heart attack or stroke, I'd highly appreciate it if monitoring software were to set off some alarm or calls 911.

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

This surveillance camera and its motion detector was brought to you by Linux!
Or BigBrother 2007, it can't be evil, it's all open source!

It sure puts a whole new spin on "Digital Rights Management," doesn't it.

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

That's Digital Consumer Enablement for you. C'mon, do them the favor, I'm pretty sure they had to spend a small fortune for that streamlined, spiffy new name.

No restriction on field of use

[jmorris42 (1458)]

> This surveillance camera and its motion detector was brought to you by Linux!

Either you believe in NO restriction on field of use or you don't. Remember, you can use FOSS to build puppy mulchers. It is if course perfectly fine to object to puppy mulchers, and anyone who actually mulches a puppy but whether the machine runs Linux, BSD or Windows shouldn't matter. Except if it has some neato realtime hacks in the control mech, they use Linux and the manufacturer refuses to give up the patches. But if

It's Not "SchaeubleTag"

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

if the community boycotts LinuxTag, it's the open source software that will be hit the hardest, and that Schaeuble probably won't even notice

That sounds like exactly the reason Schaeuble is a bad sponsor for the event. And exactly what people of conscience do, that corporations don't - one of the crucial differences between Linux and other OS'es, like OSX and Windows.

And it sounds like it's LinuxTag which should notice their community rebelling, not their pet Minister who doesn't care at all about either of them.

German Linux Community?

[robot_lords_of_tokyo (911299)]

Who is speaking for me again? This is not a boycott from the "German Linux Community", it's a boycott by people that don't agree with his political policies. That's ok, but don't use that label. Schäuble is the minister of the interior, which is exactly the person that should be involved in this (that is, the person holding that position). Sure he's a dick, but he is the minister of the interior. If you don't like his policies, just vote next time.

Re:

[Daniel Phillips (238627)]

Schäuble is the minister of the interior, which is exactly the person that should be involved in this (that is, the person holding that position). Sure he's a dick, but he is the minister of the interior. If you don't like his policies, just vote next time.

I would say this is a kind of voting.

Re:German Linux Community?

[A beautiful mind (821714)]

Sadly too many people think that all there is to a representative democracy is to vote once every four years and then the government can do whatever it likes without any repecussions.

It might have to do with the language

[Opportunist (166417)]

The German translation of casting a vote would be "Stimme abgeben". Which can be retranslated as "giving up your voice".

Re:German Linux Community?

[cpghost (719344)]

If you don't like his policies, just vote next time.

What for? His predecessor from the other side of the political spectrum, Otto Schily, was just as bad as Wolfgang Schaeuble.

In theory, you're right, but in the prevalent climate of fear since 9/11 and the massive shift away from civil rights towards security, monitoring, using confessions extracted through torture by foreign governments, ethnic profiling ("Rasterfahndung")... there ain't much you can do about it anyway. The only party in Germany that's quite skeptical of all this was the FDP (they had a minister who resigned over this when they were still in power; though it was before 9/11), but even they finally caved in to the security doctrine and are just paying dishonest lip service w.r.t. civil rights.

So voting yes, but there's no real political alternative to pick from. Boycotting LinuxTag is the only way for some people to show that they disapprove of all this. It's not LinuxTag's fault however, just an unfortunate mishap and PR fiasco.

Re:

[cpghost (719344)]

Well, yes, somewhat creative, but the last "Rasterfahndung" was definitely ethnic profiling, and was later struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on behalf of a Moroccan student, whose constitutional complaint was financially backed by the general student organization ASTA.

Here a bit of background...

[by Anonymous Coward]

The Minister of Interior has traditionally been the "Schirmherr" (a sort of prominent figurehead, it's mostly a symbolic role) of Linuxtag. However, the current Minister of Interior has been furthering some pretty crazy ideas and is considered by many to be a threat to constitutional freedoms. For example, he strongly advocates data retention and what he calls "online search and seizure" which basically amounts to government agents hacking into private computers without noticing the owner to look for material that is illegal per se or planning material for illegal operations. In addition he has mentioned in an interview that "innocent until proven guilty" should not apply in certain situations.

This is why a lot of people think that he shouldn't be in a figurehead position of Linuxtag since his values are opposed to what Linuxtag stands for (or should stand for).

LinuxDay

[matt me (850665)]

Is there a LinuxDay event anywhere?

you can't avoid the politics

[nanosquid (1074949)]

Well, LinuxTag has a choice: they can continue under the auspices of Schauble, or they can disassociate themselves from him. Either choice makes a political statement.

In general, Schauble seems to be a persona non grata to many people, and the smart thing would have been to avoid the controversy by choosing someone else in the first place.

Why is this Schaeuble guy such a bad choice?

[Crouty (912387)]

I suppose almost noone from countries other than Germany know about Wolfgang Schaeuble, his policy and what he stands for. But for German nerds it's bad news and stuff that matters. Among many other law and order topics he is trying to push forward he tries to get a law passed that would allow prosecuters to hack private computers.

That could possibly be acceptable if police hackers would need a proper warrant, the number of infilitrations was very low, the general public would get to know about these numbers and last but not least the observed subject would be informed afterwards. Experience with telephone wiretapping in Germany tells us that none of these democratic requirements are taken seriously.

Additionally, there are reserveations against the software that would be used as it is sure to open security holes for other malware.

This is basically what Wolfgang Schaeuble stands for among the German linux community and I can absolutely understand that many fellow nerds do not want to support a LinuxTag in any way that is somehow associated with Schaeuble. I for one don't welcome our new trojan dropping overlord.

What gives you the idea that he was?

[Opportunist (166417)]

I'd already count it as a sign of improvement if he got at least in touch with reality. Personally, I'd rather see this as a weak attempt to polish his rather damaged goodwill with people who don't share his vision of removing every bit of freedom people fought and suffered for in the last century to gain some imaginary security.

Maybe he'll get the hint when people, who he wants to impress by showing off how "freedom" oriented and modern he is, don't show up and turn their collective backs to him. Though I

Why does "free" have to have two meanings?

[Opportunist (166417)]

Maybe I'll live to see the day when people realize the difference and that the freedom of OSS doesn't necessarily have anything to do with beer... but I better not hold my breath.

Re:

[ScentCone (795499)]

Maybe I'll live to see the day when people realize the difference and that the freedom of OSS doesn't necessarily have anything to do with beer... but I better not hold my breath.

He's probably referring to the seemingly large correlation (or, at least, noisy overlap) between the FOSS crowd and the information-(or, at least the music and movies I want)-wants-to-be-free crowd.

Re:

[murple (28187)]

Assuming the Krauts have TV ads)?

We don't even have this newfangled thing you call TV.