[openstandaarden] About Verhofstad2 + AEL Wiki

David GLAUDE dglaudemailing at gmx.net
Fri Jul 18 11:05:36 CEST 2003


Hello,

I am David GLAUDE from AEL.

I think that more and more the battle for our ideas (whatever they are:
Free software, open standard, no software patent, no electronic
election, no bundle PC+Microsoft, ...) must be done at a political level.

We need to fight back on uggly legislation like EUCD of Software Patent
directive... but we should also fight positively for our idea to be
translated into law.

So now that we have a governement, I think we should start to take 
contact with related minister.

I started some documentation work (in french) on the AEL wiki.

I look forward for some help and analyse from peaple from the flemish
side of Belgium. I will try to indicate what and where I might need help.

Here start the thing:
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/AnalysePolitiqueVerhofstad2

I found the following link http://dossiers.lesoir.be/Verhofstadt2 to a 
french version of the "accord du gourvernement". I am looking for a 
flemish version so that quote of interesting infomation can be done in 
both language. Actually putting both version in wiki or clean html 
format might be interesting for documentation purpose (at least keep a 
backup) I don't think there is a copyright on that. ;-)

What I did is to try to find in this description on what the governement 
will do for the next 4 year what will affect the topic we defend or we 
care about.

Than cut and past + comment was put on 
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/AnalysePolitiqueVerhofstad2Programme
If you find a translated version, it will help me do the cut and past. 
Of course the comment should/could be translated or created from scratch.
Actually I think on the topic of electronic voting, maybe the flemish 
version will help me understand what they want to do because it sound 
crazy in french and might be a translation error. ;-)

They want you to vote on paper at home, bring your vote with you, redo 
the vote on a magnetic card, insert the magnetic card and the paper vote 
in two serparate ballot box (urne). I don't know what will be counted, I 
don't know what will happen if you change your mind between the paper 
version and the electronic version, I don't know why we use electronic 
if the paper is printed, ... I don't understand!

I also found a french version of who do what in the government and it is
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/AnalysePolitiqueVerhofstad2Composition

One of the think I would like is to find a translated equivalent (I 
found my version on http://www.rtbf.be/ so maybe VRT has it. ;-)

One problem I have is that I was not able to find in which party 
Vincent Van Quickenborne is currently. I guessed VLD but I might be 
wrong. So help is required here.

What I did is to check by topic who should be responsible for what...
To sumarize my finding (for your side), I think:
* Fientje Moerman (VLD) should be responsible for Software Patent and 
defend Belgium position at the Concil.
* Peter Vanvelthoven (SP.A) should be responsible for making sure our 
administration is using Microsoft everywhere.
* Patrick Dewael (VLD) should be responsible to make sure the 13th bit 
will not flip durring next electronic election.
* Freya Van den Bossche (SP.A) should be responsible to make sure you 
can get a PC without Microsoft from Super Store.

So those new guy (or girl) should be contacted soon to tell them what we 
think is important.

One of the problem I have with the AEL wiki is about language usage.

If I write in english, then it is easy for all of us computer 
scientist... but it is a problem for Mr everybody that do not read english.

Here are stuff I did in english:
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/EuropeanParliament
because peaple from every european country might want to use this 
information.

For some topic I switched to French like
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/VoteElectronique
that was first started in English here
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/ElectronicVoting

Actually for some important text, I tryed to make a English version of 
document that do exist only in French of Flemish like:
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/ElectronicVotingRandomSpontaneousBitInversion
But this is just to help that news to be publish on SlashDot
(actually for that I could produce a Flemish version since I have the 
report, just that my OCR does not understand Flemish I guess)

Now I would like to find a way to make synchronised document in multiple 
language in a wiki way.
It could be the original wiki page with _NL or _EN or _FR. But then in 
wich language should the page title be???

We can use [FrenchDescription|EnglishName_FR] to have a French link to 
the french version of an English named page.

So does anyone of you want to participate to the AEL wiki?
Do you know how AEL and OpenStandaarden could work better together on 
common topic?
Could anybody find the Governement declaration and composition in Flemish?
...

David GLAUDE

-- 
Don't let the computer/expert control the election
Information for Belgium in french: http://www.poureva.be/







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