SFLC Files Bizarre Legal Action Against Its Former Client, Software Freedom Conservancy (Conservancy Blog)

I feel it's on a collision course with free software. Its a binding international agreement and it deserves to be far better known because it changes everything in ways most people disagree with intuitively. For example, its behind what amounts to a existential threat to the provision of public higher education, health care, water, etc. unless 'supplied in the exercise of governmental authority".

A service supplied in the exercise of governmental authority" is limited to only "any service which is "supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers".

That widely used definition seems to me to directly conflict with FOSS. The GATS also contains both ratchet and standstill mechanisms which are legally binding equivalents of a noose around public services necks. Although I have no knowledge of same, not only wouldn't I be surprised if it was behind a great deal of otherwise inexplicable policy impinging on FOSS. I would be surprised if it wasn't.

Its clearly an attack on governments provision or encouragement of anything for free or below market cost (unless its 'minimally trade restrictive') that is elsewhere sold in a country. Its been kept out of the media for a reason and few people know of it, let alone understand it for that reason. Therefore, its and similar agreements that are related to it, all of their legitimacy is very questionable, especially in this area of essential services. Because they basically amount to deals behind closed doors to roll back much of the progress humanity had made in the latter part of the twentieth century, by stealth. Nothing less. And, its working.

For example, its arguably why both both healthcare and financial services regulation are broken in the US. For a number of reasons, including its one line citation in a document submitted to the WTO in February 1998 as the reason the US had to 'reform' the Depression era Glass-Steagall Act, GATS was behind the 2008 financial disaster.

The radical ideology in 'GATS' is now being extended by the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) which was also the creation of a powerful lobby of US and EU corporations. They include companies like Google, Facebook, and so on. To understand their "TiSA" which seeks to lower the costs of labor globally and lock in ever increasing levels of deregulation and privatization, similarly to GATS, and penalize countries which regulate in the public interest financially, one very much has to understand its predecessor, particularly its intentionally vague Article I which defines its scope, which is very broad. I think that this web of back room deals fighting the concept of a public good globally is in conflict with FOSS 'on principle'. And to anybody with any foresight, its principles are very scary ones.

That's not what I said at all, nor is what happened, please go read my statement again, and the huge email thread where this all happened, in public, over a year ago. Why is this a surprise to anyone? Everyone involved knows what happened and was ok with it.

The fact that you were making stuff up, when this is all public record already, is what I was correcting in your previous statements.

And this is way off-topic for this thread now, sorry for the noise to everyone else, I'll stop responding now as this is just digging up old history for no good reason other than people seem to love a nice fight and making up crazy conspiracy theories when it comes to other people and organizations.

One has to wonder if "tie the SFC up and drain their time and resources with frivolous legal side-shows" is the goal of the SFLC and their backers.