2004-05-09 Moglen WOS3 keynote on "Die Gedanken sind frei"

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In his opening speech to Berlin conference Wizards-of Os 3 Professor Eben Moglen used Die Gedanken sind frei as a leitmotif. As classic as Beethovens 9th symphony it stood for the fight for freedom and justice and first appeared in a Minnesinger song in the 12 century. FFII continously used the old German song in an amended version in Brussels: Die Gedanken sind patentiert (thoughts are patented).

Moglen's reference roots the Free Software movement in the liberation movements of Old Europe and America.

Freedom of media and press was central in his speech. "The Free Software Movement is one aspect of the centuries-long struggle for freedom of speech and the freedom of ideas." he said.

http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=54

http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/wos/17544/1.html

Comments

Andre Rebentisch (ffii)

Freedom of media is of great importance. Alvar Freude's project insert_coin(http://odem.org/insert_coin/) revealed in the public Wos3 internet cafe how easy it was to manipulate internet information by a proxy server. I experienced it by myself. In a webpage from the Austrian Television the phrase "Europäisches Parlament" was replaced by the words "Europäischer Sauhaufen" (European sod bunch). Not bad. As a true BSD freak Alvar's system changed a heise news title about the Unix/Linux desktop solution KDE http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/48106 to a Unix/OpenBSD desktop solution.

However, "freedom" always has to be defined and is a ideological phrase. It has to be re-adopted and re-examined. The great struggle of our ancestors for self-determination goes on and it is our obligation to stand in their footprints.