Cooperators are spoiled for choice in the UK because all the major parties say nice things about cooperatives and there’s even the Cooperative Party, but a lot of us who take a sharing view to software (usually Free and Open Source Software) are concerned by the attitudes of the Top Three Parties towards copyright and related rights. Generally, these seem to have been hostile to sharing and the creative commonwealth, focusing on punishing people for unauthorised copying.
The Green Parties have been fantastic, as far as I’ve seen. When I spoke at the “Resisting corporate monopolies and new enclosures” workshop in the European Social Forum 2004 in London, their Laurence Vandewalle spoke in the same session, as shown in the mugshots.
One relatively new party is the Pirate Party UK, who are hoping for similar success to the similar party in Sweden that has two MEPs now.
Some have questioned their attitude to copyright and how it would affect FOSS. They’ve posted an article where rms talks to the Pirate Party UK to try to clarify it.
At the moment, I’m an independent councillor. I have no particular objection to joining a party - I just haven’t yet. I think the current protectionist pro-WIPO stance of the Big Three means I won’t join them yet. Do you think I should consider GPEW or PPUK?
Tags: foss, free software, green, membership, party, pirate
I would take the same approach that I take when voting, which is to look at how the parties feel about other issues which are important and related. For instance, although you’re looking at intellectual property|monopoly law, you would find very few FLOSS enthusiasts who don’t also support privacy.
My concern would be that in some countries, the Pirate Party is a single-issue party. If that’s the case in the UK, the Green Party may be a better choice. On the other hand, if the Pirate Party has a full platform, they are likely to put the emphasis in the same areas as you (whereas for the Green party these issues are likely to be secondary).
But don’t just look at issues–look at how the party is run. Find out how much opportunity you’ll have to affect the direction of the party. How professional is the party; how good is it at accomplishing its aims? Does it have political capital which can be used to influence others? If the Green party is better established, you may be better off trying to promote your issue within the party (by explaining how FLOSS benefits the environment, presumably).
You could also consider being allied with a party without joining it, if neither party is a very good match.
Green Party.
Pirate Party are idiots.
To join or not to join. I guess it depends upon what you want your party to achieve. If you want only reform of one law then perhaps the Pirates are the one for you. If you want to make a wider statement about sustainable lving and climate change then the Greens are for you.
You could join the Co-operative Party, but his tends to be dominated by the Labour Party. But I think that the time is coming when the Co-operative Party needs to separate itself from this link and become more of a Party that promotes political diversity amongst co-operatives. This would mean supporting candidates from all parties that support the Co-operative Movement. Because the Co-op Party does not let members of other Parties to join, thus breaching the “open membership ” principle, I will not join, despite being a Labour Party member.
I would consider PPUK, and help me ensure that it does protect free software.
When trying to lobby people, according to Tonnerre, they listen to
you more easily if you are *not* a member of any party.
What’s the point of a candidate being allied with a party without joining it? It looks like all the drawbacks of getting labelled with their policies without having any influence over them. I can understand the point for a campaigner to be allied with a party (as I have done in the past), but campaigners don’t have to be accountable to anyone but themselves, really.
Interesting point about the Co-operative Party and open membership. My actual reason for not seriously considering them is that I feel the Labour party made matters worse, especially Arlene McCarthy MEP, at a time when they should have been sticking up for tech workers.
I’m not the most astute political observer so feel free to ignore.
But given the current state of the PPUK, I don’t think it would bring much benefit to you. One might choose to assist them in formulating their ideas further, one could even donate money, all of which I assume you could do now as an independent (or even as a GPEW member).
I suppose a councilor switching to them, would give them one councilor, so it might make the news (you’d have to make sure it did). But I think you’d want confidence in those who were founding it, that they wouldn’t make you look silly by adopting some way out policy.
I also dislike the name Pirate Party, but I guess that is a separate issue, but many folks wouldn’t vote for it on the basis of the name alone I suspect. I fear voters can be than shallow.
As an apathetic voter, I’ll only vote for independents if they have a clear statement of their policies and objectives on the Internet (or post it too me - don’t make me work to find out why I should vote for you).
I’ve tended to vote Labour or Green on occasion, although in East Devon voting Labour is kind of irrelevant protest vote. Conservative with a small “c” rules everything down here. On the other hand the local conservative candidate for the last council elections was by far and away the best candidate purely in terms of political experience, presentation, and shear energy, just a pity I didn’t agree with her parties policies - almost any other party and she’d have got my vote.
[...] mjray Parish Councillor for FOSS « Green or Pirate Party Membership? [...]