rwmtest

My article discussing why I believe a Canadiana.org and CRKN.ca merger could be great has received more page hits than my article discussing why "Copyright-free" material is not edging out Canadian educational texts . I consider this to be great news that interest is high. For anyone dropping in on my blog for the first time, I should clarify who I am.  I've been involved in the Free/Libre and Open Source Software  (FLOSS) movement since 1992 when it was simply known as Free Software. From this I grew to become active in the related Open Access, Open Education, Open Government, and related Open * movements.  I increased my policy work in 2001 due to a consultation on Copyright which included "technological protection measures" , and spent more than a decade speaking with fellow authors (software and non-software) as well as some of our political opponents (often representatives of intermediaries who in my opinion falsely claim to represent the interests of au...

As part of the discussion of how electoral modernization is hard, but worth it, I want to discuss the claims that alternate-vote exaggerates false majorities. As mentioned, there are individuals that are most concerned about geographic representation and others demographic representation.  Of those focused on demographic representation, most believe that political parties are an appropriate proxy for demographic representation. In short there are two groups who believe: MPs should represent riding constituents, and they may be a member of a party for convenience (subject to change) MPs should represent political parties, and they may be assigned a geographic constituency for convenience or because of a historical requirement of how parliament is structured I've found a number of interesting ideas that come from those focused on political parties. A belief that after electoral reform the parties we see today will likely remain intact. This appears to be the basis of this "exag...

A press release from CRKN launches a dialog about the potential of a closer relationship between CRKN and Canadiana.org. I've been at Canadiana for 5 years, starting in January 2011 as a consultant and then September as staff (See photo of me receiving 5 year recognition from our previous board president Leslie Weir ) . My beliefs come more from my personal political advocacy work on Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS), Open Access, and Open Government than it does from being a staff person.  As staff I can can clarify what Canadiana.org is doing from a FLOSS/OA perspective if there are misinterpretations (See: Good News Canadiana & LAC project spun into bad news? , Why is a license required for a Canadiana project built from public domain material? ) What I believe to be the source of some of the potential benefits. For funding reasons, Canadiana has had a bit of a dual identity ( Alter Ego ?) between being a charity created by the Library, Archive and Museum (LAM) ...

As a long-time advocate for electoral modernization, I was happy to hear the commitment from the Justin Trudeau Liberals that they "are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system" ( Liberal party website ).  There is near consensus from those who have given voting systems much thought that First Past the Post (FPTP) doesn't work for votes where there are more than two choices. While this is true, there are disagreements about what the best alternative would be.  It is useful to be aware of why there are disagreements, and why there is a need for compromise if we are ever to get away from the flawed system we have now. Criteria for success I've observed two common ways people evaluate voting systems: Geographic Representation The focus is that from each geographic region (riding, electoral district, etc) the candidate that can best represent the views and interests of that region is sent to pa...