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Members, contributors, friends, people.
<br>
<br>
End of January the US Congress will vote to pass two laws, the “PROTECT
<br>
IP Act” (PIPA) and the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA). If these laws
<br>
pass they would enable copyright holders to get court orders against
<br>
websites accused of doing or facilitating copyright infringement. So far
<br>
so good, the openSUSE Project is against copyright violations.
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<br>
We are a community that provides free and easy access to Free and Open
<br>
Source Software. We innovate, integrate, polish, document, distribute,
<br>
maintain and support one of the world’s best Linux distributions. We are
<br>
working together in an open, transparent and friendly manner as part of
<br>
the worldwide Free and Open Source community. And in this community
<br>
there is no room for copyright abuses. This however does not mean that
<br>
the end justifies the means. We at openSUSE are opposed to the proposals
<br>
because we depend on our users to not only be able to freely and openly
<br>
contribute their code but also their opinion and other information. Why
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that is threatened by these proposals, you can read over at the EFF[1],
<br>
or watch this video from Fight for the Future[2]
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<br>
We hope the decision to blackout openSUSE.org will educate people around
<br>
the world about this issue that threatens the basics of the internet,
<br>
will make some US based contributors, friends and users contact their
<br>
representatives in congress and inspire others to join the strike.
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<br>
The openSUSE Board
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<br>
[1]
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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech">https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech</a>
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[2] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://vimeo.com/31100268">http://vimeo.com/31100268</a>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"Socialism is so bad a system that not even the Germans could
make it work".
</pre>
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