Richard M Stallman in Thailand Friday Oct 30 KIS International School, Huay Kwang, Bangkok at 7:00 PM

[j. Tim Denny]

                                                                   
                                                                   
      Message from David Bucknell*****
_______________________________________                                                            
                                           
Cross-posting or forwarding of this message to others is encouraged.

*RMS is coming to Thailand to speak on software freedom, an important
civil right.  Let me explain.

Like many other countries, Thailand is struggling to find its way in a
changing world.  Software is a case in point.  Did you know that the
government of Thailand is about to crack down on the use of unlicensed
software?

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2009-06/2009-07-02-voa27.cfm?moddate=2009-06-29
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Some are criticizing Thailand for half-measures such as this one:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5553/is_200308/ai_n22510446/
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Others are advising Thailand to focus more on encouraging people to
use legal goods than on enforcement:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5553/is_200403/ai_n22128188/

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Others are wondering whether fear of law enforcement is the only
reason someone in Thailand, especially at a school, would pay
outrageously high prices for software that tells you that sharing it,
exploring how it works, or improving it is against the law. (me)
Especially when there's an alternative.
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Did you know that there is an alternative?
http://fsf.org
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"Free software is a matter of freedom: people should be free to use
software in all the ways that are socially useful. Software differs
from material objects?such as chairs, sandwiches, and gasoline?in that
it can be copied and changed much more easily. These possibilities
make software as useful as it is; we believe software users should be
able to make use of them."
Source: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html

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Did you know that Free Software is especially appropriate for schools?

"Proprietary software rejects their thirst for knowledge: it says,
?The knowledge you want is a secret?learning is forbidden!? Free
software encourages everyone to learn. The free software community
rejects the ?priesthood of technology?, which keeps the general public
in ignorance of how technology works; we encourage students of any age
and situation to read the source code and learn as much as they want
to know. Schools that use free software will enable gifted programming
students to advance."
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html
("Why schools should exclusively use free software")


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Come hear Richard M. Stallman, the author of the above words, speak on
the topic of why free software is important to Thailand:
"The Free Software Movement and its Importance to You as a Software User?
October 30, 2009 at KIS International School, Huay Kwang, Bangkok at 7:00 PM
Intelligent people will want to hear and discuss his arguments.
Be one of them.

infor...@flossed.org
http://flossedbk.flossed.org
University Students: 100 Baht
**************** HS Students Free; Any Student with a teacher: FREE!
****************************
Adults: 750 Baht
02 980 9464
http://flossedbk.flossed.org/registration
Or pay at the door

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During the FLossEdBk Conference, we will hear from all sides:


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The Thai Department of Intellectual Property:

http://www.ipthailand.org/ipthailand/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1015&Itemid=390


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Thai Creative Commons
http://cc.in.th/


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And other cool things:

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(Almost) Free interactive white boards, joomla, drupal, typo3,
claroline, gnu-linux, drupaled, moodle, openadminforschools, opensis,
camemis, koha, python, ruby on rails, open standards in education,
learning from those who've been there before, floss for primary, floss
for secondary, peripheral vendors, hardware vendors, free ubuntu
disks, linuxOnNetbooks ....

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http://flossedbk.flossed.org/registration

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http://flossedbk.flossed.org/contact
*Richard M. Stallman, or RMS, invented "copyleft."  Read about it.
It's fun:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/



__________________________________
j. Tim  Denny, Ph.D.  
  Consultant - International Development, Education  and ICT
  http://www.avuedigitalservices.com/VR/drjtdenny
 Join Joomla! Users Group Cambodia  - http://groups.google.com/group/jugcam
  SKYPE - jtdenny    Googletalk - denny.jt
  http://www.linkedin.com/in/jtdenny

"A lie repeated a hundred times becomes the truth." MAO Zedong