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Great! These last days have been absolutely stunning with regards to how we've started to come together. If Parti Pirate has a dozen new members every day, they're doing very, very well.<BR>
<BR>
Too bad we won't see them in Vienna -- will have to hope for next time. Is anybody from the French Parti Pirate on this list?<BR>
<BR>
Rick<BR>
<BR>
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<PRE>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Some news from France!</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">--Juxi</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">---------- Forwarded message ----------</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">From: <A HREF="mailto:parti-pirate@no-log.org">parti-pirate@no-log.org</A> <<A HREF="mailto:parti-pirate@no-log.org">parti-pirate@no-log.org</A>></FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Date: May 22, 2007 10:55 AM</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Subject: International Pirate Party meeting</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">To: <A HREF="mailto:juxi.leitner@ppoe.or.at">juxi.leitner@ppoe.or.at</A></FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Hi Juxi,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">things were a bit messy lastly (we switched our server to Debian Etch and</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">the SQL export/import was awfully done). Besides, neither Floyd_Le_Barbare</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">or myself won't be able to join you guys; though I really *did* want to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">come on Friday june 8th, I've just been offered a job for this very day,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">so PP meeting it's not an option anymore... :(</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">This is why I sent you this rather long mail; this way, if anyone asks</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">you, wants to know about us or anything, you'll just have to read this</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">message, with our apologies to all for not being here among you, where we</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">definitely belong.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">That said. The French Pirate Party is still here, still very much alive</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">(even if its history is quite complicated, "full of sound and fury"). We</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">have about half a dozen new registred users per day -that is, *real* users</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">and not spam bots; each day I find, on this very mailbox, mails from</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">people who share our ideals, our fight, and want to know more about us.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Pedagogy is our watchword, we try to inform people among and around us. To</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">let them know about their disappearing civil freedoms, know the truth</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">about the biaised propaganda official medias use to present as</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">"information", let them discover alternate, Libre solutions, finally, let</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">them make their own mind.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">We still lack a decent website (the current homepage/forum are to remove</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">when it's ready), and that's a pity (by the way, I *love* what you guys</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">did with DrupalCMS; the tags cloud at the bottom of the main page is a</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">terrific idea - oh, and I just stole your favicon; hope you won't mind...</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">:) ).</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">We have chosen to base our portal on the Puntal CMS, which is rather new</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">and still actively developed. The tricky part we're working on is the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">seamless integration of the Wiki/Blogs/Forum/E-Zines and so on (as far as</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">I can see, you have decided to simply skip this part, and maybe it was</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">relevant).</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Had I to define any specificity of the French Party, maybe this is where I</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">would start: our proximity with the OpenSource movement (which is very,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">very active here in France; RM Stallman comes visit us twice a week, we</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">have very-dumb-but-very-efficient opensource lobbyists, who managed to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">make the whole Parliamanent go Ubuntu and to make all French</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">administrations adopt OpenDocument format!).</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">During the last six months, we've been working and discussing with the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">developers of many opensource projects: among others, Scol, Puntal,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Torpark (I have to mention here the Hacktivismo group, which we were the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">first PP to contact, and which welcomed us very kindly --special</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">dedication to Steve Topletz, who's become a good friend of mine). We're</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">actively supporting the Jamendo torrent network (free-licensed music), and</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">we do whatever we can to promote Open-minded artists (besides, there are,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">as you know, some musicians and some opensource ayatollahs among us --in</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">my case, both ;).</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">I'm not trying to say here that OpenSource Attitude (TM) is a property of</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">the French PP, let's make it clear. What I want to say, what I feel, is</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">that this direction may be more vital for us here in in France, due to the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">French context. Moreover, this is the only way we could manage to avoid</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">legal and juridical issues so far (the bunch of BusinessEurope's poodles</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">who call themselves French Government are growling quite a bit these</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">times).</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">A few words, at last, about French PP press coverage. The guy who founded</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">our movement in France about a year ago (codename HPK), wanted to make it</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">quick and dirty, guerilla-style and shoot-first attitude. That brought us</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">a HUGE media buzz, TV interviews, articles, servers constantly down dut to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">massive affluence, one thousand new members a day, etc. This was *way*</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">cool. But let me tell : deal with the subsequent hangover wasn't that</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">easy... Most of the opensource and human rights activists considered us as</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">professionnal teenage troublemakers, and it's been a hell of a work to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">make them change -when possible, that is- their minds...</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">But I'd like to say the government poodles have done an excellent job</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">here, by making more and more citizens unhappy and by demonstrating the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">absence of criticism in official media. I'd like to make an official</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">statement here: thank you guys, we did appreciate you efforts to make us</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">feel right. Just keep going, you're doing fine. :D</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">When I talked about situation in France with one of our Pirates who</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">happened to live in China, he told me that things might be even worse in</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">France than outthere, due to the fact that citizens here actually *do*</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">believe they are in a democracy... That was my joke of the day.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Back to business. We've recently learned that a student in journalism who</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">interviewed a couple of us IRL had been awarded by a conservative press</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">group for his interview. Funny, but we're eager to see how they'll publish</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">it (they could very well put us between a paper about New Cyber-Terrorism</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">and an article on Anonymous Paedophilia on Internet, which would be rather</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">uncool)...</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">We've got tons of projects; some of them are totally geeky (create a web</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">radio, video clips, or a pirate MMORPG...), others are not (maintain our</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">wiki -- that isn't more realistic by the way...). There's one project that</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">might interest you guys: a young publisher has recently proposed us to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">elaborate the 'Pirate Manifesto', in which we could explain our history,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">the ideas we stand up for, our concrete existence and actions worldwide,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">and the political stakes involved.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">This is an awesome idea; we have, here in France, some writers and *real*</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">journalists (freescape.eu.org, if anyone of you can read French) who could</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">help us, and maybe preface it, but I thought other Pirate Parties might be</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">interested in getting involved as well (particularly our Swedish fellows,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">who are way, way, waaay better than us and whose Declaration is a</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Masterpiece).</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Finally, the reference to the Communist Party isn't mandatory here (there</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">are tons of other Manifestos outthere), though I'd definitely like the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">first sentence to be:</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"> 'A spectre is haunting the World -- the spectre of Piracy'...</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">That was my line :)</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Cheers (and enjoy this fabulous week-end).</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">in the name of the French Pirates,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Valentin Villenave, aka Pers.</FONT>
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