The Family Guide To Digital Freedom [LWN.net]

From:		Marco Fioretti <marco-AT-digifreedom.net>
To:		lwn-AT-lwn.net
Subject:		Announce: The Family Guide To Digital Freedom
Date:		Fri, 8 Sep 2006 08:20:25 +0200


Greetings,

In this modern world, our rights and quality of life heavily depend
from which software is being used AROUND us: this is true even for
people who don't care at all about computers and don't use them yet,
including children.

The Family Guide to Digital Freedom is a book which explains, in one
place and in normal language, what everybody should know about
software and other digital technologies, and above all the REAL
reasons why they should care.

The Family Guide is not a software manual, and doesn't require ANY
technical knowledge. Each Chapter is about one concrete issue,
explaining how to act at home and outside, with your money, your work
or your vote, to make sure that your interests and those of your
children or pupils are protected.

While it is specifically written for parents, seniors and educators,
the book will be useful to all citizens. Everybody needs to make sure
that governments and businesses use their software to protect people's
money, privacy and freedom.

This is not a book for software hackers: this is the book that every
software hacker will want to buy for his or her partner, relatives and
friends who are not computer enthusiasts.

The Family Guide to Digital Freedom will be published in October or
November 2006. The book will be first published in English, but
translations in other languages will follow as soon as possible. A
percentage of the profits will be used to fund development and
adoption of Open file formats and Free (as in Freedom, of course)
software.

The website associated to the book, http://digifreedom.net, will open
on September 16 2006, Software Freedom Day. The website will contain
sample chapters of the Guide and much more information on the same
topics than could ever fit in a single book. 

Digifreedom.Net will also host related news, links to the best
existing resources for new users of Free Software, software tutorials
and forums where all citizens concerned about the attacks to their
Digital Freedom will be able to coordinate their efforts to protect
it.

For further information, please contact Marco Fioretti.

Best Regards,

     Marco Fioretti
     marco@digifreedom.net
     mfioretti@mclink.it


-- 

Marco Fioretti       marco@digifreedom.net

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Thank you, Marco!

Posted Sep 18, 2006 13:15 UTC (Mon) by jabby (guest, #2648) [Link]

This sounds like an important text whose time has come. Kudos to Marco for taking the initiative!

My only observation at this point is that Marco's native tongue is not English and the website reflects this. Most of the time this presents no problem or only minor annoyance, but sometimes it results in unparseable "sentences". I hope that Marco finds a native English speaker to collaborate on the project and enlists his or her proofreading services.

Thank you, Marco!

Posted Sep 26, 2006 21:00 UTC (Tue) by marco_f (guest, #40755) [Link]

"Marco's native tongue is not English... sometimes [this] results in unparseable "sentences".

Jabby, and everybody else:

thanks for your approval! As far as language is concerned, you are surely right. I am working to have the whole text proofread before publishing the book: in the meantime, it would greatly help me if all the readers could let me know (through the address on the Digifreedom website) which sentences are not correct. Apart from the book, I always appreciate any occasion to improve my English.

Thanks in advance,

Marco Fioretti