We, the undersigned, hereby state that we expressly and unequivocally oppose the advertising of proprietary software products on government websites. Such advertising breaches impartiality and encourages citizens to employ technologies that unnecessarily restrict their freedom. The role of government is not to support certain market participants and not others, particularly when doing so works to maintain the monopolies of global software companies. In explanations of how to use digital resources that they provide, government agencies should clarify that multiple methods are available, and favour technologies which do not restrict users digital rights; by linking to PDFreaders.org, for example. Free Software guarantees the users right to use (for any purpose), study (without secrets), share (with anyone), and improve the software that they use. Public institutions should publish their documents in formats that can be read with Free Software. Indeed, many Free Software applications exist for reading such documents. Governments should lead citizens to freedom, and encourage them to make use of these applications. Sincerely,

Our co-op and 56 other businesses, 69 organisations and over 2200 individuals so far. How about adding your signature? Surely it s time for our governments to stop giving free adverts to Adobe? It was particularly annoying in the Digital Britain report, I thought.

Last week I went along to the food co-ops networking event at the Southville Centre in Bristol. It was a useful event and very inspiring and informative to meet people from so many other co-ops, as well as attend some useful workshops: the two I went to were Good meetings and communication and Starting and developing a food co-op, while there were also ones on funding and Simply Legal available. There was some time for networking, as well as a relaxed end to the day which let me catch up with a few more people. I would have preferred a little more time for the workshops and a little less on case studies (every food co-op is different and I don t think any of the featured ones were quite what I was looking for), but that s a very minor thing and didn t really reduce the usefulness of the whole day. Our co-op is a tech worker co-op and not a food co-op, so I didn t know that much about how to start one before the event. Now I ve got a much better idea of what I need to do when I eventually move back out to what may be a co-op desert in King s Lynn. Are you a member of a food co-op or buying group? If so, what would you say about it? Were you involved in its start-up?

Readers who look at our blog itself (rather than one of the lovely sites that reprint our articles) may have noticed that you can now comment in either the usual WordPress way (Name/Email/Link) or by logging in with a social media profile from one of a large range of providers, including WordPress, Livejournal, Yahoo, Google and many more. This uses the broadly-cooperative openID system. If you run a website that accepts reader contributions, you should allow comments with openid because it helps people to use their existing social media membership without you having to surrender any control to facebook, twitter, or anyone else (unless you choose to). You also don t have to ask your readers to weaken their security settings like with disqus (which requires javascript and third-party cookies). The comment form on our site is powered by the openid plugin, together with our co-op s version of the comments-with-openid plugin which can be downloaded from our site. Please download them if you d find them useful for your WordPress site. (I d love to adopt the official comments-with-openid at wordpress.org because the previous maintainer doesn t answer anyone know how to do that? I m surprised it s not in the FAQ.) Do you use some other platform? What tools have let you add openid logins to it? For example, Drupal has some openID support in its core distribution: what else is out there?

Software in the Public Interest, the mass-membership association that supports some great Free and Open Source Software projects, will hold a public board of directors meeting today, Thursday 9th February 2012 at 21:00 UTC. The day and time of SPI meetings has changed recently, so maybe different people can get to them now. They re held online, on irc.spi-inc.org (the OFTC network). The agenda for the meeting is open and available at http://www.spi-inc.org/meetings/agendas/2012/2012-02-09/ and there s been a bit of discussion of back office support on the SPI email list. I ll link to a meeting summary from the comments in this blog post after it happens.

Further to last week s blog post that mentioned this Saturday s (11 Feb) London Stop ACTA march, there s a map of anti-ACTA marches on Google s website (thanks to Martin Houston for the link). There s also been a new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement factsheet from European Digital RIghts (EDRI), as apparently there are a lot of misconceptions about ACTA. I don t feel that has been helped by some spectacular misdirection from the European Commission in its latest 10 Myths paper (linked from the EDRI factsheet) which is almost as interesting for what it doesn t mention (like sneaking ACTA through the parliament fisheries committee), what it misunderstands (like the near-uselessness of a non-commercial exemption to Free and Open Source Software or Creative Commons users), and the way it fails to rebut the final point that ACTA was done this way to avoid the oversight of the World Trade Organisation! I mean, if they can t even get it past the usually very pro-enforcement WTO, surely that should tell you something? If you can, would you please go along and join your nearest march? Recent marchers seem to have been wearing stylised Guy Fawkes masks, but how would that be viewed in London?

Sometimes two campaigns that I care about a lot pick the same day to hold an awareness-raising drive. It happened again on Tuesday. The one I took part in was advertising the Stop ACTA London Protest on Sat 11 Feb. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (#ACTA) is a plurilateral international agreement on enforcement of so-called intellectual property rights copyrights, trademarks and so on. It ll have major implications for freedom of expression, access to culture and privacy. It will also harm international trade and stifle cooperation. (More background at EDRI or a fairly large AJE page thanks to Occupy Bristol for the AJE link.) So the one I didn t support at the time was the Move Your Money UK launch day. That s a great idea too, suggesting that if we, the 99%, are actually unhappy with the big banks and their titled leaders, we should move as much as possible out of those banks and into financial institutions that we control. As you might expect for someone whose first memory of mutuals is a trust account at the local building society, I support that too. I still have building society accounts, as well as banking with the co-op bank and recently joining my local credit union. I ve moved my money. Why don t you? I didn t try to support both campaigns simultaneously on social networks because I thought it would reduce the number of people who saw my message. I backed the ACTA protest because a lot of my networks were already discussing Move Your Money and I thought Stop ACTA would benefit more. Was that the right decision? Who can tell? What would you have done?

And now a slightly longer than usual rant: The problem with the o2 network disclosing mobile browsers phone numbers that I repeated 2 days ago (and it appeared on our co-op website) snowballed yesterday to the point that it was on the short bulletins from ITN, BBC, IRN and probably many more. And then o2 fixed it. Good! The reply claims that it s only since 10th January which is rather at odds with other claims that it has been happening since at least March 2010 in some situations. I started buying from o2 in December. I was using Three, but their network where I stay in Norfolk isn t reliable and you can t just buy a device in a shop for The Phone Co-op. The dongle from o2 is a recent Huawei USB device that just worked in debian and was fairly easy for me to get working in Ubuntu. There s space in it for a memory card, so maybe I could boot from it but that s an idea for later. The o2 deal is OK but not great, and the included wifi is nowhere near as good as it looked: when it says it includes BT Openzone that doesn t include any of the BT Openzone-H hotspots that are much more common. You re only allowed to register one device for wifi, so no using your phone, tablet and laptop at different times! I can t believe it s legal to advertise that as unlimited wifi , but o2 is still a better offer than access to BT Openzone-H hotspots at 39/month (yes, that s the price for wifi-only ). Ultimately, I think the problem is that there s a rubbish choice of mobile (wifi or 3G) internet access providers in the UK. It s a completely and utterly failed market, so you need to use Virtual Private Networks and similar tricks to protect yourself from the dysfunctional networks. My VPN meant my mobile number was safe: how about yours? As luck would have it, I had already proposed a resolution about protecting customer privacy to The Phone Co-op (affiliate link) for our AGM on Saturday 4 February (if you re a member, let me know). We were trying to find a compromise wording and I don t think this little o2 scandal has hurt my proposal at all! At least the phone co-op s mobile service is based on Orange s network, which wasn t affected. How does your network perform? There s an Internet Service Provider evilness test which might tell you.

I ve given my reaction to yesterday s announcement by the prime minister in my blog on the Co-operatives UK website. If you want to comment and can t do so there, comments can be left on this article too.

Once again, lawmakers are considering a stupid protectionist measure and this time it s the US, so it has some effects outside the US too. Once again, some websites have taken themselves offline and caused great inconvenience to their supporters. This is really annoying. Protesting about threats to take websites offline by taking websites offline is as stupid as protesting against a ban on kissing by not kissing. It just demonstrates that you can do without your websites/kisses if you must. I feel it s much better to use websites to distribute information and call people to action, like this epetition for UK citizens and residents, or by asking your associations and suppliers to oppose these measures and their supporters. Wikipedia is probably a bit to blame. Although it called its action a blackout, it wasn t one and there were still many ways to access its information. In fact, if you use NoScript, the banner didn t even display and there s only a line on the front page to say anything is happening. The one that really annoyed me was identi.ca, which even turned off its API so clients just started spewing errors everywhere (I returned to my desk to a stack of retry questions). That stopped some of my websites from distributing a link to the anti-SOPA epetition because they read from my identi.ca stream how much other anti-SOPA activism was hindered? I ve been told that Evan held a vote, but I didn t see it, so I didn t vote and I don t know the turnout or anything. How many people voted for the blackout because they use other sites like twitter more anyway? Banners: yes; Blackouts: no.

Last Friday (11 November 2011), I was at the Cooperatives-SW annual conference at the Cube Cinema in Bristol, titled Growing Your Co-operative and sponsored by the Co-operative Membership South and West. It was another sold-out event, featuring headline talks from Co-op Party member and Labour MP Kerry McCarthy, Eli Sarre of Essential Trading worker co-op (pictured), Carole Theyer of Sparks Inc and Jim Pettipher from Co-operative Futures. There were also some great workshops I went to a finance workshop led by Ian Rothwell from Co-operative and Community Finance and a regulations one with Paul Martin of Kabin (details may appear on their event page) and a brilliant lunch from Runcible Spoon (and those of you who know me will know I have been livid with some co-op event lunches!) with some time to chat and network, although I also went to a fringe meeting about the RISE problems. The event concluded with the formal AGM of Co-operatives SW (electing a new chairperson and approving transfer to a new co-op corporation) as well as a bit more chat afterwards. I felt it was a great event and well worth my time being there. I m glad that some people from outside the co-op movement, from community businesses like the Strawberry Line Cafe and a few people considering joining or forming co-ops, were there and I hope it was good for them too.

The RISE co-op is the sole shareholder in the Social Enterprise Mark CIC and its members have been called to an Extraordinary General Meeting during the lunch break of next Tuesday s Knowing and Growing conference at UWE Bristol. The RISE board has proposed Four Special Resolutions that would dissolve the co-op and transfer all assets as windfalls to the SEM CIC and a trust, ignoring RISE Ltd s Memorandum of Association. software.coop is calling on other RISE members to attend the EGM and oppose this demutualisation attempt. Update: dissolved but not demutualised (see below) RISE is constituted as a common ownership co-op and its Memorandum of Association contains a clause that directs the assets to be transferred to another common ownership social enterprise organisation if the co-operative is dissolved. However, unlike the CIC asset lock, there is no independent regulator enforcing it and, unlike in many co-ops, there has been no requirement for new members to pledge to obey the RISE common ownership clause at an individual level and there has been no member education about common ownership in the last three years. This demutualisation is the wrong solution for RISE because:

• it has recieved much public money and money from members on the understanding that it would be kept in common ownership;
• there are common ownership social enterprises that could really benefit from the legacy assets at this time of budget cuts, but if those assets go to a CIC, they are lost from common ownership;
• the EGM is the day after the global launch of the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives, which is about promoting mutualism around the world and the RISE co-operative should support this;
• many RISE members are mutuals, including the world s largest consumer co-operative and demutualisation would be embarassing to them;
• demutualisation should be discussed seriously, through a proper democratic process before the regular Annual General Meeting, not sprung from the board to members in a short meeting during the lunch break of another event;
• the proposal has not been published on RISE s website or email newsletter;
• appointing the former directors of a dissolved co-op as trustees without member oversight seems unlikely to secure the assets in the long term.

software.coop will vote against the demutualisation, in favour of social enterprise, and calls on other RISE members to show solidarity with the co-operative and common ownership social enterprise movements. Update 2 November: rise has announced its dissolution but they ve got to give further consideration to where the assets go because the demutualisation resolutions were defeated. I fear that they ll still try some way to bail out the Social Enterprise Mark despite the rejection, but I hope they ll do the right thing and give the assets to good common ownership social enterprise like the RISE Memorandum of Association requires.

It s been busy at our co-op but I m never too busy to support calls for the freedom to install debian (or any other Free and Open Source Software Operating System) so I ve signed the FSF-led public statement on so-called Secure Boot .

This could be a feature deserving of the name, as long as the user is able to authorize the programs she wants to use, so she can run free software written and modified by herself or people she trusts. However, we are concerned that Microsoft and hardware manufacturers will implement these boot restrictions in a way that will prevent users from booting anything other than Windows.

So please, read the full thing and consider signing it yourself. If you want to watch for further news on this topic, Matthew Garrett s Journal seems to be the bomb. Right, well, it s another busy week this week, so it might be the weekend before I find time to blog again, but posts will be a bit more frequent next week: watch this space!

Our co-op has put in a bid to bring KohaCon to Edinburgh in 2012. Edinburgh is a great Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) conference city, with libraries of national and international importance, a huge choice of hotels, restaurants and entertainments and good international transport links. 2012 is also a great time for our co-op to host, because it ll be the International Year of Co-operatives and our co-op s tenth anniversary. So please, if you d like a library FOSS conference here next year, head over to KohaCon2012 voting straight away. I ll announce the result after the vote closes on Saturday 1st October.

I m listening to quite a few podcasts recently. Here are my current favourites:

• Cyberunions which covers the tech/work crossover space and is appearing as Ogg near the start of most weeks. I reviewed an earlier episode and it s kept on improving. It s under CC-BY-NC-SA, so you can share it, but it isn t free software (FOSS) itself. Thanks to John Atherton for the tip.
• The Command Line is more tech, but with a leaning towards activism too. This podcast is actually FOSS sadly the only one of this round-up! It s recently dropped to once a week on Sundays, which is a shame in one way, but suits me better. I don t remember how I got started on this.
• More or Less: Behind the Stats is about numbers in the news. Maybe my love of statistics influences me, but I think this is brilliant, puncturing the pompous politicians who try to mislead (figures don t lie, but liars do figure). Imagine the FactCheck Blog with its own show and a sense of humour. It s just gone on a break, but there s plenty of recent episodes to catch up on.
• Real Peloton is about pro cycling, by reporter-presenter Ned Boulting and journalist Matt Rendell. They probably should not be left alone to make podcasts, but it s great that they do. They appear sporadically, depending on other work schedules of the presenters. The Banjo Cycles team including Matt Rendell won the IG Markets Hot Lap during the final stage of the Tour of Britain in London and the world championships are this week so maybe they ll have something to say soon.
• Answer Me This appears on Thursdays (although it has just gone on a month s break) and gives right-but-sideways answers to listener questions.

And now for number six, what are you listening to? Anything you d recommend?

So tired, but so happy. Well worth it as a day out. Yesterday I went to the Tour of Britain as it passed through Cheddar Gorge. It was a fairly social trip, riding along with two from Bristol on the way in (hope they got back OK one bike broke crossing the orchard at Sandford, but I showed them Cheddar Cycle Store) and one from Milton on the way back. When I got there, I rode up the Gorge until I had to stop (or else fall off) and it was still packed with fans. It was a good half-hour before the race would pass by, but already almost every flattish piece of land by the road had either a spectator or a bicycle on it. I watched twitter for race news, posted an update @mjray, then put the phone away as the green-fronted police bikes came through just ahead of the racers. I tried videoing the race, but it s only the second outing for the handlebarcam and I seem to have deleted the recording before hooking it up to the laptop. Thankfully, the itv4 coverage (repeated 13:00) is pretty good. (My back is on TV! Ahem.) Now, today (Saturday) I will be mostly doing the work scheduled for Friday, but it was still worth it. Go along if you get the chance: Suffolk and Norfolk today, Westminster tomorrow. I suggested it to @enterprisehub s #coopsweekend because the Rabobank team are doing well.

The blog is back. We ve moved it to our new blog hosting (please contact us if you d like us to host your blog or if you spot a problem with our blog), so the adverts are gone and I m still correcting the plugin setup for the new version. Among the comments was this one:

My small design firm needs to upgrade its software, which is very expensive. I am wondering what the legalities might be of putting together a cooperative of other designers to share the $4900.00 expense + additional seats.

Legalities of a buying co-op for seat-licensed software? I can write reams about co-ops but I shouldn t because:

1. Our co-op doesn t sell seat-licensed software and we re basically opposed to that concept, preferring co-operative development of free and open source software (FOSS).
2. This is a site about software, not co-op development. I helped set up our co-op, but I don t know enough to help many others. For co-op development, our co-op is a member of Somerset Co-operative Services and Co-operatives UK who can advise far better on that sort of thing and publish the damn fine Simply series of guides. We refer enquiries about co-op development to them, Co-operative Assistance Network and the co-operative enterprise hub.
3. Mentioning $ makes me think this is a US-based question, so National Co-op Business Association may be a better place to start. If it s another dollar, the International Cooperative Alliance membership may show the right country. The legalities vary by country.

Anyway, now the blog is back, I ll write about software more soon. If you ve got questions about software for co-ops, co-op-made software and that sort of thing, please leave them in a comment.

This is my first week back after two weeks off (I aim for three complete weeks off a year). Even if I had reached InboxZero (and ToDoZero and so on ), there was two weeks of requests, reports and rubbish piled on top of what was already scheduled. I wasn t even completely offline this time and was forwarding urgent incoming messages to other members of our co-op, but the backlog is still significant. How you deal with this? Basically, I arrive back and I feel like I m already behind. The good feeling of being up-to-date seems like a distant memory. The clear day I allocated to dealt with things that arrived seemed inadequate. Was that just bad luck because a lot of stuff came in, or is there a rule-of-thumb for how much catch-up time to allocate? 3 Lessons Learned From 6 Days Off The Grid Social Butterfly Guy offers a view on how to prioritise things, but it still looks like catch-up takes hours. Can you see any ways to make it more efficient but still please clients, collaborators and co-op members?

The SPI election results have been declared. Jimmy Kaplowitz, Clint Adams and Robert Brockway were elected to the SPI board. There were 75 voters, which is 16% turnout, up from the 13% in the last contested election, in 2009. The next meeting is this evening at 20:30 UTC (21:30 UK) in #spi on irc.spi-inc.org and there are a couple of resolutions, inviting the Drizzle database and Arch Linux distribution projects to associate, so that SPI can collect and process funds for them. Please, pop in and see how the new board members perform.

Software in the Public Interest (SPI) will hold its Annual General Meeting today: Wednesday, 13th July 2011 at 20:30 UTC (21:30 UK, 22:30 CET). SPI is the developer association that supports debian, OpenWrt and many other projects. SPI meetings are held on irc.spi-inc.org (the OFTC network). The agenda for the meeting is available at http://www.spi-inc.org/meetings/agendas/2011/2011-07-13/ There are currently no resolutions on the agenda, but there should be some annual reports.

Thanks to the Guardian for publishing Why co-operatives matter written by two members of our co-op. Also today, I m pictured being given a share by Giles Simon of our national co-ordinating co-op on the Co-operatives Fortnight Facebook page. I m not a big fan of facebook and I still want to try the more sharing alternatives that cyberunions reviewed. Speaking of cyberunions, apparently they answer the criticisms from my review in episode six which I still haven t found time to listen to yet and there s an episode seven out already. Maybe I ll start to catch up later today (Tuesday), if I don t go to the Bristol Wireless Annual Meeting. Tomorrow is another busy day, hopefully including the Koha Town Hall Meeting. And there s still half a week of Co-operatives Fortnight to go, so we re not done by a long way yet! If you d like to take part, there s a Co-operative Business Breakfast in Weston-super-Mare on Friday morning at 9am please leave me a comment if you d like to come along.