Held in London last Saturday, OpenTech 2005 was an informal, low-cost conference about open technologies and content. Attendees ranged from BSD hackers to digital rights activists, from mapping enthusiasts to staff from the BBC. The program covered the work of organisations like the BBC and Yahoo!

Software piracy and copyright infringement are serious problems, whether with free or proprietary software. So few would complain if an organisation tried to uncover and help prosecute those who wantonly ignore license agreements. The UK-based Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) has been doing just that, but its tactics have prompted claims of extortion and bullying, worrying many small businesses and schools.

The story of users migrating from Microsoft Windows to a Free Software alternative (or attempting to do so) has had one large sticking point: the alternatives are much harder to learn than Microsoft Windows. Received wisdom says that when GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and others become as easy to use as Microsoft Windows (or when Microsoft's EULAs become too unreasonable), the migration will be inevitable, and it will be a good thing for all. If we can make that bridge to allow those migrating to cross it, all will be well. I beg to differ.

Traditionally, the establishment has looked upon anarchism in a purely pejorative sense, either ignoring it or applying the term loosely to any form (or lack) of social order that seemed threatening. Thus in society, the term "anarchism" has become a synonym for chaos and disorder, rather than for the organisation of a society on a voluntary, co-operative basis without recourse to force or compulsion. The media scorn popular protest, labelling any dissenters as "violent anarchists", and news reporters describe with glee the "anarchy" of failing enemy governments.

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During the Kosovo conflict in 1999, a sixteen-year old ethnic Albanian girl, nicknamed "Adona", began an e-mail correspondence with a junior at Berkeley High School, America. She wrote of Serbian forces holding her village to ransom, killing journalists and community leaders, raping women, and finally of her friends and family deserting the village. Meanwhile a dissenting radio station, B92, was being given Internet access by a Dutch ethical Internet Service Provider (ISP) called XS4ALL, over which the journalists were able to send their usual transmissions via a proxy in Holland. Seeing that their censorship methods were proving useless, and trying to appease foreign aggression, the government soon allowed B92 to resume it's transmissions over radio.