"For the past twenty-two years the Free Software Foundation has had the mission to promote, preserve, and protect the freedoms to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute modified computer software, and to defend the rights of all free software users..."

I just heard about the proposed ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) over at Free Software Daily and from the Free Software Foundation.

We interviewed Chris Fernandez, of the Binary Freedom project to find out what they are doing to defend digital freedom.

Most Americans expect that their laws are only passed after some period of public debate between Republicans and Democrats or their news-channel proxies. However, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) may be an exception to this rule, and if it is signed, many United States laws concerning the Internet and ownership of data may become substantively different.

"..RMS’s other mission here is to promote the Free Software Movement. The creator of the GPL...is at pains to correct misunderstandings of what the term free software means and to draw a distinction between it and the open source movement.

The free software community understands that free software gives the user more freedom than proprietary software. Proprietary software confines its users, prohibits them from making changes that would allow everyone to benefit, etc. Free software advocates (myself included) have a habit of claiming that using free (libre) software means the same thing as having freedom.

Whether you are online or offline, freedom matters. Like good health you never think about it or miss it until it is under threat or actually gone. If you love freedom, you probably love free software and it has given us some terrific tools with which to defend freedom.

"Hello, finally. This is an unusual talk in which I'm going to start by explaining the ideas of free software, and then go on to talk about how they extend to some things other than software.

"The Software Freedom International Board will be aiming for United Nations recognition of Software Freedom Day as a day of international importance for 2008.