[Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail

[Julian T. J. Midgley]

On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, Andrew Clark wrote:

> Regarding checking them in non-IE browsers, that's pretty much all I
> do (I use Mozilla / Galeon). The reason it looks so bad in Netscape
> 4.x is that I stick to CSS/HTML standards which kind of kicks Netscape
> 4 in the teeth (the CSS support is dire).
>
> Generally speaking, if I create personal sites, I'll ignore browsers
> and stick to the standards, the reason being that I hope that using
> the standards makes the site as accessible as possible. As a result
> the sites are usable in (hopefully) any browser, but don't necessarily
> look very nice (e.g. www.tweakhtml.com in Netscape 4). When I do sites
> for work, I do indeed check the sites in as many browsers as I can.
>
> If I use XHTML 1.0 Transitional, I can get the site looking fine in
> Netscape 4 and still be valid HTML (I normally use XHTML 1.0 Strict,
> which is the Netscape-killer). But at the end of the day, I'll do the
> site however people want.

<fx> Emerges wounded from trenches waving white flag </fx>

It's quite clear you know a fair sight more about the intricacies of HTML,
CSS and friends than I do.  Would be very good indeed to have your help.


> > Don't yet need hosting space- the website and mailing list are run off a
> > co-located box that a group of us share.
> >
>
> No problem. The offers open anyway, if anything changes.

Could be useful to have it in reserve in case of a Slashdotting or
similar.  The Register effect was noticeable but the box coped without any
difficulty- it's only a Pentium 90 though, and probably wouldn't withstand
a slashdotting.  Since the freesklyarov site went up, average weekly
traffic has gone up from 100MB to around 700MB.  If anyone's interested,
I'll open up the stats pages.

> It's just occured to me that perhaps the companies which are unwilling
> to lend support are the ones who's support would be most beneficial.
> For example, if we were able to gain support of some highstreet
> CD/video stores, it would demonstrate that even companies who you
> would expect to be pro-EUCD are against it. Of course, persuading some
> is another issue altogether, and probably not possible. Perhaps an
> argument like 'Publically denouncing the EUCD makes it clear that you
> care about your customers'.

The secondhand music/book shops and smaller privately owned ones are
probably a good bet.  It seems that American publishers and music
retailers would really like to kill off the secondhand market altogether.
The DMCA potentially gives them the ability to do this legally - the EUCD
might do the same thing here.

> Anyway, just a thought, and probably obvious anyway, but I thought it
> was worth mentioning.

Never much harm in mentioning things that seem obvious to you.  It's
surprising how often they're far from obvious to others.  No-one else had
suggested it before you did, and I'd actually assumed that the last place
we might go looking for support would be music retailers.

> Libraries may also be an idea if they're willing (which I'm guessing
> is fairly likely) - anyone who uses libraries is going to be concerned
> by the concept of pay-per-read. Plus libraries are fairly neutral (as
> opposed to, for example, a music shop who obviously will support
> anything which increases sales).

Agreed.

>
> NP. I'll try my best to be there - I have nothing else planned so
> unless something unforseen happens, I'll do my best to be there. I
> live in Uxbridge (NW London), so certainly anywhere in central London
> is easy for me. If anywhere else, I'll sort something out.

Unless a few more replies come in soon, it looks like there won't be more
than four or five of us, in which case it probably will be best to use the
time usefully in a brainstorming session to work out:

a) how to recruit more support

b) how to raise public awareness of the issues - Dmitry, DMCA, EUCD (and
deciding on priorities).

And decide how we can make best use of the website and mailing list itself
to achieve these (plus anything else that people think we need to sort
out).

Jason, what are your thoughts?

Julian
-- 
Julian T. J. Midgley                    http://www.xenoclast.org
Cambridge, England.                       PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F
UK Free Dmitry Protest:              http://uk.freesklyarov.org/