Richard Stallman, MIT presents “Copyright vs. Community”

Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it.
The global corporations that profit from copyright are lobbying for draconian punishments, and to increase their copyright powers, while suppressing public access to technology. But if we seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright–to promote progress, for the benefit of the public–then we must make changes in the other direction.

6:00pm Monday February 22, at the University at Buffalo North Campus, Student Union Theater

Stallman launched the GNU Project and initiated the free software movement years before others even thought about ‘open software’. Don’t miss the Fidel Castro of Computer Science !

All are invited – there is no admission charge.

Two prominent community members, Dusty and ralvez have been working hard to bring Arch Linux it’s very own conference. ArchCon 2010 will take place in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, on July 22 and 23. Registration is now open at http://archcon.archlinux.ca/ and more information can be found on the ArchCon site at http://archlinux.ca/archcon2010/.

ArchCon will feature talks and tutorials from prominent community members and plenty of interactive discussions, development sprints, bug squashing sessions, and, of course, socializing.

Earlybird registration ends on February 28th. Those who register early will be doing the organizers a huge favour by helping estimate the number of attendees, and to finance initial costs.

Registration is now open for DebConf10! DebConf10 will take place in New York City, USA from Sunday August 1st through Saturday Aug 7th, 2010, with arrivals at our group lodging permitted as of 3 PM on July 31 and departures required by 11 AM on August 8. The conference is  preceded by DebCamp from July 25-31 including the arrival day.

To register follow one of the processes outlined below:

- – If you registered for DebConf7, DebConf8, or DebConf9, go to https://penta.debconf.org/penta/submission/dc10/person to login.

- – If you didn’t register for last year’s conference you need an account in the conference management system. To register one, go to https://penta.debconf.org/penta/user and create an account. After visiting the activation URL sent to you by email, go to https://penta.debconf.org/penta/submission/dc10/person and log in.

After logging in
- —————-
After logging in, please fill in at least the ‘General’, ‘Contact’ and ‘Travel’ tabs reachable through the ‘Registration details’ button on the bar on  the left of the page. Please pay special attention to the ‘DebConf’ and ‘DebCamp’ boxes on the ‘General’ tab. You need to select at least the “I  want to attend this conference” checkbox or your registration won’t be valid.

Note to users who have an account from previous years: We did our best to make sure you do not have to re-enter all your personal data again,  just the conference-specific changes. But please check to make sure it is all still valid.

When making changes in the conference management system, please revisit the page to ensure that your changes have been properly  recorded.

Travel Sponsorship
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We hope to obtain enough sponsorship to help some people attend who would not be able to pay for their own travel. We hope to allocate  travel sponsorship money between April and June. We will make travel sponsorship reimbursements as soon as possible, but unfortunately, in  the past this reimbursement has sometimes only been possible quite long after DebConf.

If you would like to apply for travel sponsorship, please fill in as much information as you can on the registration pages. Even if you have not arranged your travel when you apply for sponsorship, we need to know which days you intend to spend at the conference.

The deadline for sponsorship applications is April 15th.

(This is also the case if you apply for accommodation and food sponsorship, without travel sponsorship.)

DebCamp Attendance
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DebCamp is a smaller, less formal event than the main conference, giving an opportunity for group work on Debian projects. It will again be  held in the week before DebConf, from Sunday July 25th through Saturday July 31st. In an effort to make DebCamp a little more organized we  ask everyone who wants to attend DebCamp to fill in an additional text field describing their work plans for the Camp.

Cost of attendance
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As multiple attendees of past conferences suggested that we make it easy for attendees to make a contribution towards the cost of their  DebConf attendance, we are again offering a way to do this.

As in the past, the conference is free, and we will try our best to offer food and accommodation sponsorship to everyone who requests it before April 15th, but if the number of people requesting sponsorship significantly exceeds previous years we may have to limit this.

We also offer two additional registration options, “Professional” and “Corporate”. The Professional category (USD $650.00) is meant for every
individual or company who wants to help the conference by making a contribution to reflect the cost of their attendance. The Corporate category (USD $1300.00) is intended for companies who pay their employees’ attendance fees. If you register as a Corporate attendee, we will list your company on a special page on the conference website.

Both paid registration categories optionally include free food and accommodation; other non-sponsored attendees are encouraged to stay or eat with the group at their own expense. Room costs will be USD $53 per person per night; food costs are not yet finalized.

We encourage everybody to help make DebConf a success by selecting the Professional or Corporate registration category.

Attendees that register late (after April 15th) are ineligible to request food or accommodation sponsorship.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to New York City in August.

- — DebConf team

About DebConf
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DebConf is the Debian Project’s developer conference. In addition to a full schedule of technical, social and policy talks, DebConf provides an
opportunity for developers, contributors and other interested people to meet in person and work together more closely.  It has taken place annually since 2000 in locations as varied as Canada, Finland, Mexico, Scotland, and Argentina.

DebConf10 will take place in New York City from Sunday August 1st through Saturday August 7th.

DebConf will be preceded by DebCamp, from Sunday July 25th through Saturday July 31st. DebCamp is a smaller, less formal event intended for group work on Debian projects.

If you are interested in helping by working as a volunteer during DebConf, please contact debconf-team@lists.debconf.org

If you or your company are interested in sponsoring DebConf by donating money or lending equipment, please contact the sponsorship team at sponsors@debconf.org

More information about DebConf9 can be found on the conference website: https://debconf10.debconf.org/

About Debian
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The Debian Project is an association of Free Software developers who volunteer their time and effort in order to produce an excellent free,
cross-platform operating system.   More information about Debian is available at http://www.debian.org/

About New York City
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New York City is the most populous city in the United States.  It spans five counties, and is the seat of the New York metropolitan area, one of the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York is a center of worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion, entertainment, international affairs.