It's four o'clock up next. We will have Zach be presenting Debian in the dark ages of free software Can you hear me better? So hello everyone welcome again to that come for guests It's a great pleasure to be back again It's some at one that comes and a great honor to be doing one of the opening talk I confess I wasn't really expecting that honor I just wanted to propose a session which was supposed to be a kind of a self-head session for those of us that thinks that there is there are some worries to be had about the Where the free software movement is going in general and the role that distributions have to play in the current state of affairs So this talk will be about a couple of journeys at once so the first journey is sort of a journey through Emotions through good feelings about what we have achieved in free software over the past 15 to 20 or 30 years depending how long you've been involved and the second journey is essentially my own journey through Software freedom from the day I started discovering free software and what I've ended up doing since then so Starting with the the positive news. So this is how this is how I got involved myself in free software in 1997 I understand that there are people in the room that would have been involved Since way earlier than that other that have been involved since way later than that. Well, that's my story I hope you'll find restaurant points with your own story And when I started as a freshman in a computer science class in the University of Bologna That was a huge tipping point a huge hype point for the so-called open source movement That was the year the very influential essay by Eric Raymond has been published that was the year Well actually a few months earlier than let's escape decided to open source this its own code And that was the moment in the history of free software where people are trying to to sell to the industry What free software was doing and I'm not using that word in a cell in a bad sense So there was reasonable concerns that without involvement of the industry the free software movement was it would have even got far so they were trying to Tell about free software in an industry friendly way So essentially the rhetoric at the point was that if you do development of free of software in the free software way in a More open way in a more participative way You will end up having better software and that by merely opening up your code You will have these flocks of programmers coming to your project and end up helping you so a few years later I realized that I personally didn't believe much in that idea It's not that only because the software is open is going to be better But that was a fair thing to try at the time What I discovered a bit later is actually what stuck in me was essentially the the philosophy of free software the fact that Computer user should be in charge of in control of their own machine that should have some basic freedom So you all know about the four freedoms I'm not going to go into repeat them here But the my personal point is there is that the the way the narrative of free software is something that resonated with me a lot at The time as a student I realized that by having free software at my fingertip as a computer science student I could debug any single layer of the software stack and look at how things are going I didn't have to trust the teacher on how some operating system should be developed I could be I was able to open up Sked.c in the Linux kernel and have a look at the actual Scheduling algorithm that was in that had been implemented in a real kernel Not that I really grew up all of it at the time, but the possibility was just breathtaking for me and Later on I ended up distilling the main intuition of free software Which is the one I used to explain free software to people which is the intuition of control So I ended up believing that the main reason why I've been involved in this movement for About 15 years is that I really believe that every single computer user and that's a lot of people this day should be in control Over their own computations So everything you are doing with a device which is mediated via software is controlled by someone Either it is you or it is someone else and the best episode the best narrative to explain that to people that they've been Using for quite a while is this passage from the novel makers by core doctor which is a bit long So I'm not going to read in detail But essentially there is one character of the novel which is Lester which is explaining to another character the importance of Controlling your own devices your own tools and the first example It takes is example of a hammer a physical hammer and he goes on saying that if you own a hammer Essentially, you could do whatever you want with that you can use it for its main purpose Or you can use for something completely different which was not meant to be its original purpose But it's you that decide and it compares that with another device Which is a Disney in a box in the novel and it Disney in this book is the the big day evil villain which is oppressing people and Essentially Disney in a box is a glorified a 3d printer that can only print that can only print what Disney wants it to print For that day. So one day it will print a Goofy character another day will print Donald Duck, but it's not you who decides It's Disney that decides what the printer is going to print for you that day you own the device But we're not in control of what the device does and the the big quote for me is that if you don't control your life You're miserable and this notion of essentially oppression is what has been motivating me for all these years So the fact that if you are not in control of your own computation then someone is Oppressing you someone usually is the person or the company or whatever that has created the software That's the power to change that software instead of you and this is something that really sunk in me and What was I doing at the time with my computer what I was doing some pretty Standard stuff. I was using some the hardware that we added a time which was mostly desktops and local network servers I didn't have a laptop because it was really expensive for students So I did get a laptop much later and I was doing some content production some content consumption the kind of content I did produce at the time was mostly Office suites desktop publishing and this kind of stuff. I was doing some communications some emails I'm a RC some news girl which was very cool at a time for geek communities And I was doing some software development as a newbie, but that was what I was doing at the time I also did some content consumption So some gaming which arguably is content that someone else is producing for you to Consume I was doing some web browsing the internet was not as popular as it is today But there was some website you could find it interesting so in that situation with that kind of computing the actual path to Software freedom and to control was fairly clear It was difficult, but it was fairly clear to me as a new activist in free software What I should have done what we all should have done to actually liberate people from the oppression of people controlling our own computation So the idea is that well You have a lot of pieces of proprietary software Which you do not control and what you need to do is to replace every such a place every such a component of the proprietary software With a free software equivalent equivalent So we were using some local application some game and we needed to replace it with an equivalent free game We were using some client server software some male source some lay client some male server Some IRC clients some IRC server and what we needed to do to actually empower people and liberate people was to rewrite Those pieces of software with free software equivalence So it was difficult because it was a lot of stuff to be rewritten But it was fairly clear the plan was clear and also luckily we also add at the time All the EV lifting was already in place the GNU project has existed quite so since quite a while the Linux kernel Is this existed already and he was working so someone else with shoulder larger than the shoulder I had at the time had already done a lot of work for me and Me and together with other for software activists what I had to focus on was to rewrite Propriet application into equivalent for software equivocation possibly better so it was clear it wasn't hard, but it was fairly clear and And that's where I think the notion of a free software project comes from So we we use we use very often this term of a software project And I never ended up really thinking about that before a few years ago And I think the reason why we call it free software project is that there is an objective So there is a mission ideally a time-limited one and that mission is Writing a replacement for a proprietary application using free software, which is as good possibly better than the original and Having a lot of free software project around give raise to a lot of releases So what we were doing a lot at the time in the 90s was to actually manually install software on our own machines To be fair we also had our lab was running some radar machines at the time there weren't that many packages available and We had to fairly often install stuff by hand on the lab machines in our own directories and also on our computers at home And this is the procedure you all know very well So you download a terrible you run configure you run make you run make install the first time I saw that it was kind of a magic magical recipe for me Just follow these steps and you will get some software to play with well except that every single step could fail of course Well, let's let's keep aside for the moment the fact that the website might be down But you run configure and you miss some software you need to fetch it from somewhere else You run make your encounter some compilation this compilation problem you are making store Maybe the path will clash and so on and so forth So the problem with this procedure for installing software we were using by hand is that you're essentially conflating roles You're mixing together the role of software user the role of system Administrator and the role of software developers you need to have a little bit of all those skills together to be able to enjoy Software so in a sense a free software which works like this is essentially a very elitist thing It's only an elite which have all the needed skills Who is able to enjoy the benefits of free software and is able to be in control of their own computation? And this is essentially the reason why distributions much earlier had been invented Okay, so we all know very well here what distribution do they sit in between Software developers and software users and make it easy for you to actually use that software we do Installer work we create installers we create package managers we do all the integration work that make different pieces of software work well together and We actually make life easy for final users So for me something that I started believing is that the the ultimate mission of free software distributions It is to actually democratize free software to enable users Which do not have software development skills or do not have system administration skills enable them to enjoy the benefit of free Software, so we offer very simple interface We offer the equivalent of what these days are called up stores in which with one click You can just install some software and they join the benefit of that software in particular of free soft so This is for me the historical mission of distributions, so later on 1998 our lab decides to switch the end and I was really happy about that We switch from radar to the end and I look up about this project I start learning about what this project does and I find out that not only this project Dabian was actually up to the mission of empowering user by making it easy for users to use free software if you if you read the original announcement of Ian Marduk announcing The the band project will found this notion of being competitive with proprietary operating system and it's really clear that the point is empowering users and I End up reading about this project and not only I found out that the mission they're up to is the mission I believe in but I found out that the key intuition there is to make the project a community project So not only the target are the users and empowering them But also the way to reaching that objective is creating fostering a community that will work together to that goal So I got immediately booked. I vividly remember the moment a colleague of mine a student explained to me the Anatomy of a day on source package The fact that it was a dot or a gz the fact that there was a diff gz with the difference with respect to upstream And all those made a lot of that was really thrilling for me a former technical point of view. So a few years later. I ended up Joining the NM process. I was doing some OCaml development at the time There were some libraries OCaml libraries in Dabian others are missing and decided, okay So maybe I should help and create some libraries for for the project as well. I went through an M and And There are a few things I've learned during an M and also in the subsequent 10 years or 15 years or so so one thing I've learned in all these years in Dabian is the Importance of being principled. So that then is a project that did not start from Only technical means but also decided at some point that they needed some guidance some clear guidance on what should do technically what he shouldn't and Important documents where we have distilled this notion are the DFSG Okay, they've been free software guidance, which has been very influential on the free software movement as a whole They've been used as a basis for the open source definition as you know And what was very thrilling for me is that commitment that we had in Dabian in keeping the main archive Completely the FSG free keep keeping it completely free software. This committed is depicted here by those fearsome character and his owner On a couch and it's mediating and triggering the new queue supposedly and the new queue is not necessarily the best way We could implement a system which triaged all the software in the archive to ensure it is the FSG free But it shows our commitment to actually only follow the guidance that we have set for ourselves It was really motivating for me And the second thing I've learned and which will come handy in a bit is the importance of the legal knowledge and legal geeks In the free software movement like it or not free software as an ideal is Philosophical mainly but the its main implementation is through the legal system is to copyright licenses So truly to really grow up what's happening in free software in general and to understand what's where the free software movement is going Figuring out and really understanding what's going on the legal system is very important and in Dabian We know that pretty well That's a stumbling block for many people when joining the Dabian project It's something we insist people are at least basically familiar with and that's pretty A pretty characteristic of the Dabian project So in the end what I've learned is that in this quest that I feel very much myself Against the oppression of someone else controlling your own computation Low if you act around it smartly can be a very useful ally a very useful device to liberate users Time passes there was supposed to be an image here, which for some reason disappeared and We might argue That these days we have achieved a lot since that moment if I look around the industry or in general if I look around Computing as people are doing that Well free software is a little bit everywhere in the industry It is there are some stats that claims that essentially every single software product you find on the market as a little Inside of it at least a little bit of free software code And if you look at all the different applications text we have from web servers to education to clients to smartphone You find a lot of free software Free software infrastructure that are everywhere. Okay, so these are just some stats I figured out in the in recent years And for instance if we look at the one of the key target market for Debian that of servers We'll find out that one website over 10 on the internet in general It's running Debian if you include also some of our most popular derivatives such a boom They will find that more than 20% of the website are running something which comes from our own work and some of the Recent hype on free software is coming from has been coming from the Snowden revelation And most people are starting to be concerned about what the software they're using is doing and it's turning to see free software And it's turning to stuff like tails which is heavily Debian based to actually see in which way we can help them Foster their own security. Okay, so in some sense, we have achieved a lot in a very enough in Everything we do in computing there is a little bit of what we have done in free software And also a little bit of what we have done in Debian and this is pretty impressive for me We are in a place where I wouldn't have dreamed being when I started in 1997. That's very impressive On the other hand There are some reasons of concerns and this is the main thought I wanted to share with you and There are some technical reasons which we discuss often in free software circles like the fact that Okay But most of these platforms are not are not 100% free software If you look at smart phones smart phones, for instance, you will find a lot of non-free code every here and there and The point can be made that either you have full control over your own computation Or you're not in control at all because if your software stack is a single layer Which is controlled by someone else and is mediating all your communication Well, maybe you're not so sure that you are the real owner and they're your controller for your own device And that's absolutely a fair point We can be made some more technical points about for instance No free JavaScript more and more for our computations are happening in our browsers and they're happening through code Which is delivered to our browser by Remote servers and those code is not free at all. And I absolutely agree with that But the point I want to focus on for today is actually What we call the cloud. Okay, so I have all my images are gone. I had a very nice image there. Sorry So The remaining point and is my main reason or concern is what it's been called the cloud Let allow me to be a bit generic here for a moment I know there are very different parts in what we call the cloud and we'll be more specific in all of them in a bit But for now I want to focus on the common trend that the cloud is bringing to computing these days So computing today for most people is not much different from the kind of computing. I was doing 15 years ago Okay, that's the kind of computing that we do on very different hardware So we have way more smartphone way more tablets than in the past and that's true That the kind of activities we do producing content consuming content is very similar The big difference is the kind of technological stack we are using and where the computation are happening So for most people today Our kind of office suite we use is no longer a software which is installed in your machine, but it is Google Docs I'm an academic myself. I'm very often forced to use some Google Docs Application to work with others. Otherwise, I'm free not to work with them Okay, because it's a ton of technological choice. We should be made by someone else for many people Email as you know, just main Gmail. Okay, and all the all our emails Even if you're not using Gmail ourselves are passing through some Gmail servers a synchronized communications still exists But it's very often mediated to software like skype or jit all and so on and so forth We have seen this list very often. Okay consuming content there as well We are still doing gaming we're still doing browsing But it's often mediated by platform which are far away from us and just stream content to us Or in the specific case of web browsing There are more and more often hosted by a very few authors in the world Which we often refer to a wallet garden that can do whatever they want with our content Okay, so the point here is not demonizing those services People are using those services because they are Convenient and there is a lot of network effect going on that makes it easy for other people to just start using those services So it's really not the point of demonizing those services the point here Is observing that interesting computations that we are doing as a final as our as our job as our As our life are no longer happening on our machines But are happening another machines which are far away from us and which are not under our direct control In this context for me, I confess What actually is the road to software freedom and to control to enable people to control their own computation is no longer clear Is no longer enough to say well, we just need to rewrite Google or facebook or twitter in free software That's not enough because even if you do that you have the problem that When you are using a server you don't know if the code it is running is the one they claim it is running So that's a very difficult problem to solve and even if it were the case Well, where do you deploy yourself a google like architecture or facebook like architecture? You simply can't Okay, so it's no longer enough to just say we just need to do some software development And we just need to make it better than the alternative There is a real tricky combination between software development and software deployment, which is not easy To see how to fix it At least for me, it's it's your very in a very muddy water So what about distros? So we are distro people we're doing one of the most popular distros in existence So are we winning or are we losing in the situation? How are we doing in terms of of our efforts? So in a sense, we are very much winning A lot of our work is being used to deploy those infrastructures A lot of the infrastructure of the big companies are deploying on top of free software If not directly on top of our very own systems Maybe modified here and there where they need to to make things better as it is their own right given It's all free software. Okay, so in that sense we're winning. We're increasing market share We are using we're being used a lot to make infrastructure But we are also losing In the sense that we are really not empowering user to be in control of their own computations Okay If our final users are the CIS admin that are running those infrastructure for them, we are doing great We are making them be sure that they are in control of their own infrastructure But for the final users of those services, we are really not empowering them at the moment So what I call the free software dark ages, which is an expression which I actually borrowed from from Bradley Kuhn and the fire and they find it quite inspiring is a situation in which We win on the end user market So every single device out there in the end of people Desktop laptop even smartphones where right now we are not doing very well All of this is running free software. All of that is running Debbie Okay, so total word domination as we were talking about a long time ago But all interesting computations all the final user application which has been used to Bring on with your digital life are no longer happening on your devices Happening far away from you on computer. You do not control Sometime with free software sometime with non free software, but in any case outside your own control So in a sense, this is very worrisome for me because we have this euphoria of saying we are really popular Okay, we are winning the war. We were using a lot of this A war like terminology When I started but the word that we are winning It seems to be coming increasingly pointless because it's not being useful to actually empower user to be in control of their own computation To make things worse There seems to be some some cultural problems That might be just you know a perception of mine Maybe I'm being too pessimistic, but it seems to me that as developer communities as hacker communities We are becoming way more lenient way more lax about the lack of control on the tools and on the infrastructure We use to make free software More and more often we see free software developed on Non-free infrastructure meaning infrastructure which are built using non-free software and which are anyhow centralized in the end of a few hosters, okay, and We the new generation developer which is coming up seems to be totally fine with that So I'm not going to argue this point in much detail There is a great essay by macro that I encourage all of you to read free software needs free tools Which actually make a couple of points one is that By using non-free software to make free software we are sending out a very bad message We are telling to the world that free software is good for you That's why we are developing it, but it's not good for us because we are using non-free tool to make it So that's a kind of a catch 22 in our advertising message But it's also making the software we are creating indirectly less free because if the Favorite way to contribute to that free software is using some non-free infrastructure some non-free tools Where indirectly we're making people that only want to use free software less apt to contribute to that software So really recommended reading that essay, but also technically we are going back to a sort of a cage problem Which is also a problem Which has been called the problem of the bug that no one can fix by the fsf I think and essentially we're Creating software stacks in which some part of it is entirely free software that we can debug and some other parts are Non-free software or any other software run by someone else So we have lost the ability to debug the full stack When I was starting to Learning programming the easy idea that I could debug everything from the end user I was writing myself for an assignment down to the kernel level was just exciting for me And we seem to be losing sight of this a little bit As a second cultural problem We seem to be losing sight of how much help we could get From the legal system and from new legal solution that we might be in need of finding An example of that is the post open source software post debate Which some of you might have run into And that's a debate which actually observed that the new generation of Free software developers actually don't care about licenses They just want to kick out their code just put it on github not declaring a license at all and they're just fine with that Okay, so they want to be had to do have the hassle of deciding first of all a license second of all also some Governance model for their projects. They just want to be hacking and doing and not caring about those unknowing details This could be interpretively interpreted in positive ways like says that we want the Right to to work on the code and to do whatever we want with that by default We do not want to be explicit in which kind of rights we give and that's a very positive interpretation of this phenomenon But in the end for now It is creating a huge bunch of code that we could not use as free software yet For instance, we cannot include in that and something that does not have a license at all Okay, a second example is the debate about the non-freeness of agpl If you look up the history of Free software, there's an argument that the gpl itself is not free. It's an argument that was being used 20 years ago when the battle between copy left and liberalizing was very high was very harsh and it's just recurring again So maybe for some syntactical interpretation of our own guidelines We could make the point that something like the gpl is not free Maybe but the point is that the way we distribute software to final user is really changing 20 years ago 15 years ago the main way to enable some user to use a piece of software Was actually to make a copy of that software and give it to him or to her via the network or on some media And that was conveying that kind of conveying software is clearly distribution And that kind of activity used to trigger some sort of license clauses These days the software is no longer be distributed that way in large parts Is being used over the net and something like the agpl Is the equivalent of triggering some licensing condition via the main way of distributing of giving access to some software So I want to enter in details this debate Those are just examples for me They are example of the fact that we are kind of losing faith in how much the legal system and free software are intertwined And this actually mixes very badly with the situation in which Users are losing control because computations are moving away from that I think this situation in general is not going to fix themselves and we as distribution people have a role to play in fixing it So what could be a role for debian in all this computing situation we have these days so The common trend in the so-called cloud seems to be that computations are moving away from user devices And we cannot just say well, just don't use anything cloudy because it is convenient people will want to use that We need to do something different So as distribution people we could do a lot I think and I have a couple of thoughts to share with you That are different depending on the On the service model the so-called service model of the cloud So one of the first service model of the cloud you might have heard about is the infrastructure as a service where essentially you have servers that Give virtual machines to people and essentially you can you get to administer your own machine Which is a virtual machine on a virtual machine servers controlled by someone else This is potentially very good for people Because it is lowering the barrier you need to have your own server when I first set up my own server with friends in At the end of the 90s while we had to buy some machine to find someone kind enough to host it Paying the hosting fees and so on and so forth and it was something that was by far Not at all accessible to the random user these days A lot of people can simply go to some virtual machine provider Rent a virtual machine with one click button and they have their own machine to administer Maybe they don't have the skill to administer the administer it. That's a different problem What we are definitely lowering the barrier to access to have your own server and do your own remote computations So as debian, we are doing pretty well in this area I think we are offering technologies like open stack and other competitors of open stack which are seems to be the market lead on that market which are entirely free software But I think we should be investing more in offering a Trivial deployment experience for debian users We should make trivial for people to have their own virtual machine servers If they are not computer geeks, they should be able to flock together friends which have Software system and ministry of ability and have their own local Iaas and have their own virtual machine without having to rely on Big oyster provider that offer virtual machines to everyone in the world This is would be a great step toward autonomy. So as debian, what is the best deployment experience we can offer For people that want to set up their own virtual machine servers Then there is another service model which called paths platform as a service This is a kind of service model in which essentially you have oysters of application engines you develop application targeting specific application engine And sorry application servers. So you target specific application service an example of this is a google app engine Okay, and I think in some sense this service model of the cloud is mostly orthogonal To what we do as a distribution because either you are using a full-fledged distribution and you do your own system administration Or you are developing an application for a specific application server and you rely on someone else to do that administration So yes, I think that's mostly orthogonal to what we do But might also be a symptom that there is a reject from the application developer community I reject from the way they need they can target distributions like debian So if it is very difficult to have your own application running properly on debian because we have old software Because we change libraries because we do not accept Multiple copies of the same libraries and so on and so forth If it is too difficult for application developers to target debian They might be more and more tempted to target application servers like paas So there might be something we could do this here like finding better synergies between containerization technology We have some work being done in debian And the way we usually develop some We usually maintain a distribution. There might be something we could do about this here Oh, and I didn't mention this but I have no hands no specific answer to give to you Just train of thoughts that I wanted to share with you and what we could do to improve the situation And the final service model we have in the cloud, which is I think Worrisome from the point of view of user of user experience of user control is SAAS Software as a service they're essentially use your own device your own computer only as a thin client and rely Entirely on a remote server to do your own computation So we are back to the mainframe thin client distinction of the early days of computing And here there is a lot we could do I think but also a lot we could not do Here most of the work should come from upstreams We need better free software and federated replacement for popular centralized and proprietary applications In which users can participate in some kind of network by using their own node Okay, and this is work that should not come from distribution itself It should really come from application developers upstream, but still there are still there are useful things we could do here So we already have a lot of building blocks We have stuff like on cloud data next media gobbling pop.io We have yasi we have a lot of good building blocks most of them are not yet up to par with the centralized proprietary equivalent, but I'm confident we could get there what we lack Is the equivalent ease of deployment of these services on user machines in some sense if we have democratized the installation of software 20 years ago with distributions Well these days to face the challenge of Control over our own computation We need to make it as easy as using a package manager to install Your own nodes using those applications ideally everyone in the world without Nothing more than basic computing skills computer user skill should be able to have its own machine at home Doing some anonymous browsing doing some mail handling doing web hosting doing storage calendar Doing encrypted peer-to-peer backup and so on and so forth. I'm maintaining my own mail server And it is a use of work. I struggle myself to keep up with the need of knowledge and of surveillance that I need to make to my own mail server to be able to To run it properly and I Get blacklisted from time to time from big providers and it's a pain It's something that no one without having at least some basic system administration ability could do properly This is the thing we need the the nut we need the nut we need to crack We need to empower everyone out there to have its own computer with its own node of those services And of course you are all thinking at the freedom box now And that's a great example of a project who wants to take all precisely that problem It is a project that's been Announced by ebb and mobil in a few years ago at a debcov if my memory serves me well It's heavily based on on debian and it's doing exactly that But my question from the debian point of view Is maybe this project should not only be a spinoff of debian should not only be A derive a derivative distribution of debian Maybe we should think of making something like this as first-class citizen in debian I don't know exactly what that means yet. It's something we could Think about having the main administration interface for debian something that target these specific scenarios We could generalize that we do not need to target only specific Plug devices because people at home might have desktop computers might have media center They might want to have something like the freedom box at home and collaborate with other immediately My point here is that if our mission back in the days was to democratize free software by making it easier to install software on your machine Well today our mission is democratize free software by making it Previous to install some node of some federation of free services on your machine And another thing we could do and this is the last one for me today Is to step step in the free service debate When I started looking up these arguments a few years back I was surprised by the fact that it's still not clear. What does it mean to be a free service? Okay, when I started working on free software 15 years ago, it was fairly clear what does free software mean Sure, there was some terminology debate between free software and open source which still exists today But the basic freedoms the basic rights that you should have to call something free and open source was fairly clear That kind of intellectual debate had already happened at the time Today where the problem of computations moving away from individual user is raging There is no clear consensus on that matter There is some great work. For instance, there is a frankly street statement on free network service I think that's the full title dating back to 2008 at six years ago In which you find a lot of very useful recommendation for users For software developers and for system administrator to make sure that you maximize Your control over your own computation on the network But they take no issue no no sense on what does it mean to be a free service? Okay, is it enough to have something which is free you doing it more in the specific license? There are some recommendations on that point, but still there are no clear answers to this question. Sorry There is another work by rms 2010 about software as a service or service as a software substitute as he calls it And here essentially what you have is a main recommendation about Don't you not using software as a service at all? Essentially there is a recommendation of doing your own computation on your own machines I think that might be well, that's generally good recommendation But it's not going to scale is not going to be enough in my opinion to convince people not to use very convenient services I think we need more gradual and blurry lines saying encouraging people to keep computation closer to them To rely on federation of friends of people to do computation together And we as distribution people could make it easier for them to do so And then there is another work Which is network services aren't free or non-free which is a couple of years later still by rms Which essentially try to work the fine line between what's the difference between a pure service So a service that just for instance convey messages as opposed to a service Which does computation that could have been done instead on your machine And that's a very fine like to work. It's very difficult to stay there And what we might need there is a Is a stronger position actually in which you try to replace everything which is centralized with federated equivalent and say that We as free software people distribution people should work in that direction So what we could do in the ambient? Well, I think we should try to step in this debate Surprisingly for me, we still have no clear answer to what does it mean to be a free service today? And we have quite a bit of experience in that again in leading debates in the area of free software We've created the fsg which has been used as an example for many other communities We have participated in the gpl v3 discussion for instance our decision in terms of Free licenses are looked upon a look up by other projects. So we might have a The authority and the reputation to step in these debates and we also have A lot of technical knowledge in the area So being a free software distribution committed to free software We know a thing or two not only about software freedom, but also about how you deploy software Okay, how difficult it is and how difficult it should be for people to deploy free software So I think we are in a just the sweet spot to actually enter this debate with the needed authority and Make a contribution to actually help people realize. What does it mean today to use a free service? So the concluding question I have for you is so what's Debian take today on liberating users? Would be Would we be happy enough to have Debian on every machine in the world if people are using Complete remote services and if we were not well, what should we do? What should be working on to change that future which seems Very much the future that we have at hand So Yeah pictures are gone. So there was a cloudy network cloudy A cloud or any cloud on the left. There was Debian here and a sun here. So Latex bimero ticks or something is playing tricks on me. So that's all I have for you I hope you have I've given you some food for thought for this week And if you have any question or comments for in these topics, I'm very much happy to hear about that. Thanks a lot There seems to be a mic which is floating around down there It's not quite a lot and quite brilliantly about what cloud computing Buzzwords mean for free software But I think one important battle that we're actually losing Is for hearts and minds of people Why is it that young developers or newcomers to free software don't care about? Software being free Why don't they care about non free using non free tools? Why don't they care about? Which licenses they declare for the software if any licenses at all and so on you mentioned that problem But what do we do about it? Do you have any ideas? Well a friend of mine when asked a similar question, I think one sounds word Well, what could they say more than all of those young kids? So I don't know. Maybe it's our fault. Maybe we have failed as As a generation to convey the importance that being in control of our own computation add or maybe it's just that the Public that is open to Coding and hacking is much larger than in the past. So we are reaching out to other communities And it's very good for them to be coding because I think every citizen in the world need to have some basic knowledge of Coding to understand what's happening in the world But maybe they just have different mission than we had in the past So very good question. I don't have a very good answer. Sorry Aaron Hello, sorry is this It's good. Okay So I thank you so much for the wonderful talk and I think it's great to talk about these political issues and I see there's a A challenge between the sort of very individual focus of Each person being able to use their own computer as they wish which has its own values But there's a different sort of value that relates to Power structures in general. So we're talking about not just How free is each individual person? But whether an entity like twitter or google or facebook or some of these other services Is a very powerful entity that has power over The majority of us who use their services and so I wonder if And I'd like your thoughts on on thinking about it less as a is this software free but about Who is in power in the community and so in a democratic sense you could have the community that builds the tools together has governance structures or has mechanisms for handling power that Make the power more bottom up and more democratic and maybe that's As or more important than the technical status of each individual user Yeah, so as a concerned citizen and also as a political activist. I very much share your concern I think we need to focus on what it's At and reach for us as geeks in this circle and have this kind of discussion in different circles So as someone who is active in politics, I very much try and as a geek I very much try to actually explain to politician and to activist the role of What we're doing here in very technical ways and the impact that it has on politics in general And I think biella in the talk later on this evening might have a thing or two able to say about that as well So from our part, I need we need to Understand it in some sense Even if we advance a lot the status quo of user control over technology that we had 30 years ago We're also started to lag behind in many other areas Something that I wanted to mention before but I failed to do so is that When I were doing my computing in the 90s A lot of computation were mediated by clearly defined protocols So we had rfsc rfcs or equivalent documents by other organizations, which were like clearly marked paths to how to Collaborate technically on the internet and how to make software talk together in a sense that culture of interoperability of protocols has actually Started lagging behind a lot with respect to popular technology. So stuff like social networks Most of them except the the good ones that free software guys are trying to to build like pump.io like diaspora Well, all those stuff those technology started up without any kind of interoperability in in mind So technically I think we should we need to push against again On the direction of interoperability of protocols and that's a technical contribution that we could do that will have an impact You know code is low as lesi was saying and that would have a technical impact on the power structure. You mentioned That's that my thought on this matter So I have a an answer Or bit of a hello. Yes. Hello. I have an answer or sort of an answer to the to the previous question So this is of course the heart of the difference between Free software and open source the difference between free software and open source Isn't nothing at all and it's not about licenses. It's about Goals and aims and over the past decades Those, you know, many of us have chosen not to pick a fight with open source people Just for an easy life and you know, it's always easier to have somebody Who might share some of your goals and and to to be able to collaborate with them But less and less is it becoming the case that The goals of people who are doing open source are the same as the goals of people doing free software You can see that very clearly in The responses from people like google to things like the agpl And there are a lot of examples So one of the things that we can do To try and bring some of the new crop of developers along with us Is to actually make a bit more of a fuss about You know, let's not, you know, come over all stallman about that Stallman is not the best PR guy, but I think Debian can do a lot better than he can and we've probably got a lot more credibility And individually we have as well and what we need to do is we need to Explain our vision to those new developers who Mostly are just being, you know, they see an open source marketing machine and we are something different Thanks, so does not need to be a question and answer. So if you have comments feel free, so I think we're running short of time and we need to do one more question So maybe one last or Stefano one last or we can okay one last question or comment Just a quick comment if I may you talked about, you know, federated services and facebook and dropbox and that sort of thing Sorry, um, I think maybe the the issue here is is perhaps less about federated services, but it's about identity You know, if I have my own Dropbox alike and you have your own dropbox alike. The problem is Not necessarily that the two couldn't talk to each other, but we have no way of negotiation that sort of identity authentication Access kind of problem and I think maybe part of the answer your question is can we come up with some way of Allowing federated identity management for people in general rather than just us say So I think this is very much related to what I Answering before to Harron in the sense. Yes, we could we have shown in the past that we can come up with very Smart protocols that allow people to technically interoperate over the net, but we are We're coming too late for that So those big entities which now have the power to attract a lot of users to them developed before Those standard that we could have used to make smaller Entities interoperate could have been put in place. So yes, I agree with you There is technical work to be done But in some sense we are we are late in doing that work and the question now is not only How could we do the technical work that allows to have smaller entities that interoperate for authentication or for Everything else and also how do we migrate from the status quo to the ideal word that would be possible if those standard existed in the first place So in a sense we I think we are a bit late and now we have twice the work to be done before Reaching the optimal and more federated situation, which I think would solve the problem So thanks a lot


I'm Linda Quinlan. I'm Keith Gosland. Today is Tuesday, December 17th. Welcome to All Things LGBTQ and our Holiday Edition. Now we take our hats off. Yes. Headlines, yeah? I'll begin with some international headlines, if I may. Despite massive protests, a trans bill in India gets the president's assent and becomes law.  Members of the Kenyan gay community hoist rainbow flag at the peak of Mount Kenya. Out son of new Argentinian president represents with pride flag at father's inauguration. Same sex couple makes history, wins Denmark's Dancing with the Stars. Miss Myanmar, the first out Miss Universe competitor, speaks up for LGBTQ acceptance. But can't she go home? Yeah. Yeah. She didn't win either. Well, all right, let's not reign on her parade. It was a very courageous move. Absolutely. Yes. And I apologize for that cliche I just used.  And we'll talk more about that on the clip. A nude portrait of Emiliano Zapata in High Heels sparks fury in Mexico. Now we have stories I'm not gonna get to. Perth pride, LGBTI community challenges, corporatization, a familiar story. Transgender victory in Japan. Maybe I'll have a chance to get to some of these. I'm always hopeful. Hungary's first ever trans pride sees hundreds demand the right to change their names and legal gender. BBC Radio One to put the first non-binary presenter on air and have a picture of them in case we don't get to it. This is Jacob Edward from Manchester. And then I have another picture of a gay broadcaster on the same show, Gabriel Green. So let's take a look at him in his journalistic garb. Finally and unpleasantly, British University tells staff at Dubai campus to hide LGBTQ identity. So those are my headlines, it's a mixed bag, yes. Very good. Now we have national and of course, on the top of our list is the hallmark channel which canceled Zolo. Zolo is a wedding planner or a wedding, something or other. Zola. Yeah, Zola. And it reinstates the ads and vows to re-air the commercial with the lesbian wedding after threats of a boycott. We have a lot of power, huh? Pressure from LGBT groups has the hallmark channel apologizing for its mistake and is vowed to show the ad again. Hallmark was pressured by one million moms which we know about and other conservative groups. Hallmark kept two ads but it didn't include the ones with the same size couples. Yeah. So Zola was a wedding registry company and they canceled also and cut all ties with Hallmark. So. Are these headlines? Oh, okay. So anyway, I just wanted to, because you guys said you wanted to talk about it. Oh, I do want to talk about it, is it now or the time? No. Okay. So two Dallas men plead guilty in grinder-related hate crimes. Construction begins a Navy ship to be named after Harvey Milk who would think of that, huh? And wasn't he refused entrance into the Navy? He was dishonorably discharged from the Navy. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Study finds that 25% of Southern LGBTQ people live in poverty. The King's County, Washington, a legally blind trans woman was beaten and stomped. Bernie Sanders takes back his endorsement. He gave to Schenke Buge for Congress. United Nations honors Cindy Loper for her LGBTQ activism. Lawyers for the family of transgender Roxanne Hernandez who died in custody in immigration, custody died. Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie talk about the queer story that is in Bombshell. 219's super sports person of the year, Megan Ripenow. Rapinole. Rapinole. Soccer. A man asked you a question about an earlier headline. Yeah. So what happened with the lawyers for the Hernandez case? I'm gonna go back to that. But there was a sentence fragment. What about that? Okay. You're just introducing them. Yes. And they had like, I see, okay.  Oh, don't. Last week. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And reporter Trish Bendix who won the 2015 Sarah Petite Memorial Award for Excellence in the LGBTQ media. So that's my stories. And Anne's just chomping to ask you questions. I know it. I know. I'm fully questioned and commentary. So this week's trivia question, and there's been a preview. December 1986 front page of Out in the Mountain. It's part of, it was the first major press release on behalf of a statewide lesbian and gay coalition, 14 of us signed it. Choosing not to be anonymous. And this was part of the statement. During the just concluded political campaign, Vermont has witnessed a terrifying display of public bigotry and hatred. The lesbian and gay citizens of Vermont have been the focus of public statements, campaign pamphlets and advertisements suggesting we have no right to exist and certainly should not have rights to non-discrimination in employment, housing, healthcare, insurance, privacy, or family law. We were ambitious. Yet we are at least 10% of Vermont's population. We vote, work, own businesses, land and homes and participate actively in our Vermont communities. Think of a job and some of us do it just as straight Vermonters do. We are family members and we form families ourselves. In other words, we are as varied and as much a part of Vermont as our other Vermonters. What precipitated this statewide coalition to issue that press release? I know, but I'm not gonna say. Yeah, that's because I told you. And then I'm gonna talk probably a little more than usual about events. This is traditionally that time of year where it's very easy for people within the LGBTQ plus communities to feel excluded. As you're alluding to with the Hallmark story, we're not part of those traditions. So sometimes we need to create our own. So we're gonna talk about some new traditions. And then I'm gonna talk about the 2020 census and why we truly should care about it and participate and I'll even mention a brief employment opportunity. I know someone who's doing that. Well, I did agree to an appointment to the complete count commission, which is each state's effort to ensure everyone gets counted. One of the conversations is there are some very specific underrepresented communities to which the census commission wants to reach out and ensure they get counted. LGBTQ plus is one of them. So they're actually looking for people to work and it would be May through July. Could be up to 40 hours a week, depending on where and how much you want to devote. They want people from within those underrepresented communities because we're gonna have greater access to them. So this is one, as opposed to the other federal agencies, we would be a priority. So now you want to tell me good things first? No, I'm gonna start out with a couple of downers. Take her sheets away from her. Take her hat if you have. This trans bill of rights in India has caused a lot of discouragement in the trans community, in fact. What a mess over there. Well, in every, there's a lot of problems there. But this act that was just signed by the president is described by trans people as gender justice murder day, the day that it was signed. They say that the act treats trans people as inferior citizens. Some of the problems are that it requires a transgender person to go to a district magistrate and a district screening committee to have their gender identity certified. A revised certificate can only be obtained if the person has undergone gender affirmation surgery. So one can only guess what the proof will be. Well, right, and there's no opportunity for appeal if the district magistrate says no. The punishment for sexual assault on a trans person is a maximum of two years where minimum punishment for, yeah, minimum punishment for raping a cisgender woman is 10 years. So. And that woman who just died in India, the one that they was raped and she brought a charge against them. Oh yeah, that was it, yeah. This activist's discrepancy deems transgender person as lesser, as inferior. Edutators have also said that a major problem with the law was that its prison form was reached without taking any into account any feedback from transgender people. So it's a disappointment and the president signed it. Now let's go to Africa. Because they were kind of moving forward, weren't they? Well, yes, they abolished section 377 that, you know, and therefore decriminalized same sex behavior. But they're taking a step backwards in this regard.  This central African country is the 70th country to ban consensual same sex relations. It's a new penal code that was brought forward earlier this year, but nobody said anything about it. So the government official confirmed the charge, which happened in July. I'm sorry, confirmed the change in the penal law. But it was not widely reported. An activist who monitors LGBT rights in West Africa said he's spoken to two Gabonese men who've already been arrested under the new law and had to bribe the police to be released. It introduced a penalty, this change, introduced a penalty of up to six months in prison and applying a five million francs. And this change is coming at the end of a mixed year for LGBT rights. Hopes for reforms were raised last year, which we just talked about when India overturned 377.  We reported on that. That brought the number of countries outlawing same sex relations to 69. The lowest figure since the watchdog group started monitoring it in 2006.  Advocates are challenging that rule. There are legal cases challenging being to the same sex relations under way or planned in countries including Singapore, Mauritainis and six nations in the Caribbean according to an activist organization. Globally, we're seeing polarizing tensions as a researcher where things are getting better. There is momentum for even more improvement and where things are bad, now we're seeing that they're getting worse. In Africa, 33 out of 54 countries criminalized consensual same sex relations. However, six African countries have scrapped their bands since 2012, marking a positive trend overall. In general, across the continent, things are moving more in the right direction than the wrong direction an activist says. I'm guessing you'll see a lot of change in the next 10 years or so. An apropos of change and resistance and grassroots activism, members of the Kenyan gay community have hoisted a rainbow flag at the peak of Mount Kenya. So I have a picture of you. There they are at the peak of Mount Kenya. They're members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community from Kenya. Their initiative was dubbed Climb for Justice. Despite homosexuality being illegal in Kenya, as we just said, there have been increased cases of members of the LGBT community coming out to publicly express themselves. Climb for Justice is an initiative by human rights activists whose aim is to raise funds for the construction of a safe house for human rights defenders in Kenya. So there we have the end of my first segment on a positive note. Yeah. What will happen to them now? Do you have any idea? Well, they'll continue to be activists. Putting that up there? You see, yeah. All right, so what does everybody want to say about Hallmark? The CEO, Mark Perry, said in a statement that the company has always been committed to diversity and inclusion. So do you buy that or not? I've never witnessed it. Have you ever seen an LGBTQ plus production? I do watch Hallmark in my entire life, probably, but you know. I think head should roll over this. Why were they so eager to do it with very little consideration? I mean, they said people who made the original calls said, oh, we agonized about it. I don't think so. I read that statement. It was really offensive about how we represent family values and LGBTQ people are part of this. So then market forces encouraged them to change their mind, and that raises another question, I think, about whether corporate power, and I think it's almost a no brainer answer, corporate power is more influential than governmental power. Of course, the Trump administration is very homophobic, but money talks. So get your own private editing and publishing software, and I say we make our own cards. Yeah. Well, does anybody buy Hallmark cards anymore? They're kind of expensive. I say we make our own cards. Well, here's one. Hell yeah. Yes, holiday card. With the happy penguins on the back, you know. Thank you, Pete. I don't know. Everyone's hailing this is a great victory, but I'm not impressed. They shouldn't have done it to begin with. I know it to take pressure from 1 million moms. I want to see the roster prove to me that it's a million moms. And I'll applaud Hallmark's decision a year from now when I've seen the programming that they put in place that they didn't have before. They almost put those like holiday creepy shows on. Yeah. Anyway, so two Dallas men plead guilty in grinder related hate crimes. The US Department of Justice charged the men with hate crimes and violent acts. Daryl Henry, 24 pleaded guilty to one hate crime count and one count of conspiracy to commit a hate crime. Kidnapping and carjacking. The other alleged suspect Pablo Senecaros de Miano, 19 also pleaded guilty. And I guess they did a lot too, like they stole their cars and they beat them up and did some really ugly things there. And not surprisingly, the study finds that 25% of southern LGBTQ people live in poverty. In every state except for Florida, the study found that more LGBT people are poor compared to their cisgender counterparts. The Williams Institute of California focuses on public policy sexual orientation and said that much more needs to be done in these areas. And in Kings County, Washington, a legally blind trans woman is beaten and stomped until she was unconscious. And authorities believe the attack was transphobic. So what happened was a group of teenagers and this woman was waiting at the bus stop and they all got on. And the teenagers started to slur her, call her names, and she got out some pepper spray and sprayed them. And then they chased her out of the bus and then beat her unconscious. They do have the two, there's two 16-year-olds and one 14-year-old involved in this. They have got them. So we'll see what happens with that. Well, may I interrupt? Yeah. I have failed to report a story. So I'm going to talk about it now in Russia where five young women were walking along and these five young men followed them, started taunting them, saying, you look like a lesbian. And one young woman defended the person who was being verbally attacked and they beat her up. And while the other young woman was trying to find her pepper spray, they beat her up too. So there's Russia for you. Yeah. Well, it happens here too. Oh, yeah. 14 and 16-year-old you said? Yes. That's minors, which means we'll never know. The sentence will be shortened. Whoever's who they are. And in most states, if you're charged as a juvenile versus being charged as an adult when you turn 18, you are released. Right. So you'll never know unless if they do something like this again. Bernie Sanders takes back and endures when he gave to Schenke Ugar for Congress. He was running for the same seat as the woman, what was her name? Hill was her last name. Who had to leave because she was being cyberbullied by her ex-husband. Revenge porn. Revenge porn, exactly. She was bisexual. And so he endures this Schenke Ugar for Congress, but it turns out that he has what's supposed to be a progressive show online called The Young Turks. Have you ever heard of them? I've seen them on regular TV. And he got a boost when endorsed by Bernie for the House seat in California. But now he has unendorsed him because apparently he has said homophobic, transphobic, misogynist, racist comments on his show. So he has unendorsed him for him. And I guess there's another Democrat running in that race. So we'll move to you. No? After misogyny and yeah. No. It's that time of year. You're going to need something that's fun. So from our friend Aaron Marcus, we did it. The Montpelier Contra Dance is officially switching full time to using non-gender terms to teach contradancing on Saturday, January 4. Dance starts at 8 o'clock, runs until 11. Montpelier Grange, Route 12. Sliding scale, $5 to $15 to help pay for the band, all of the sort of accessories. We get to be birds. Larks are on the left and ravens are on the right. So if you're inspired, pull on those yellow leggings and come dressed as your favorite bird. Creativity and fabulosity are encouraged. How can you say that? So just a reminder, every Wednesday, 4.30, Pride Center in Burlington, LGBTQ plus people with disabilities meet. There is the QTPOC, Queer Trams, People of Color Film Series, that's the third Thursday, 6.30 PM, also at the Pride Center. And hopefully, there's someone there who knows how to run the projector. And don't forget the game nights. They are trying to do an ongoing community game night and then the women's game night. Also keep in mind Merchants Hall in Rutland, who are someone that we really haven't had a whole lot of contact with. They do monthly drag shows as a community event. And one of the things they've said is if we as all things LGBTQ want to table at an event, we're more than willing to come share what we have for resources because they'd like to extend the network between LGBTQ plus programming. Keep in mind, there is also Brown and Out, which is Reggie's podcast. Ours? Well, I just promoted us. And then there's Out in the Open, Brataburro, which does their hour program once a month. I'm not sure. But you can go onto their website, find it. There is also Queer Connect in Bennington. They're trying to put together a Queer Archives. So as you were saying, Linda, before we started taping, we need to find old articles. And archives them, yeah. They're actively trying to get what they can for things that have happened not only in Bennington, but statewide. Also Rutland, LGBTQ Rutland, if you Google it, you'll find a meetup where they do a monthly coffee group at a local restaurant that's very much LGBTQ plus friendly. And then if you Google LGBTQ Advocacy and Northeast Kingdom Vermont, they're doing monthly meetings to try and come up with social opportunities, events, and educational outreach. And this is what I'm finding seniors. We're becoming the big issue. I think it's because there's more of us now. Everyone wants to show Jen silent. So Ann has an opinion that it had its time. Well, we've all seen it. I don't mean to be cynical. Now it's time to move on and put some action behind it. So make another more timely film. Well, look at that. You can do that then, Ann. I wish I were a filmmaker. We could become our own Jen silent updated. Oh, but we're not silent. And I heard that. No. There's this joke now, speaking of that, that now when anybody gets mad, when a younger generation gets mad, have you heard this? No. They start yelling boomer. It's not a joke. It's serious, but I mean it is a slam. They go boomer. Anyway. Is it my turn? Time to move on. All right. Let's talk about some good news from Margie. You know, I had some reservations about this very festive outfit I'm wearing since it's the dead of winter. I got in the elevator with Linda, who said to me, aloha. All right. All right. We take this. Let's talk about the out son of the new Argentinian president, his name is Estani Slau Fernandez. And I have a picture of him. He went to his father's inauguration with a pride flag. He's known in Argentina as a popular drag performer and cosplayer by the name of Dijish. He made headlines last month when he went to the Buenos Aires 28th annual pride celebration, which had an attendance of 300,000 people. He's 24 years old. Showed up as his father's inauguration wearing a rainbow colored pocket square. You see, you saw that in the picture. Which he wore in official photos for the event to make sure there was no doubt about it. In a statement, he later posted a video on his Instagram stories revealing that the pocket square was a folded pride flag. The video was reposted by multiple followers on social media. He has identified as bisexual. Argentina is known for its progressive LGBTQ rights. Same-sex sexual activity was made legal in 1887. It's recognized same-sex marriages since 2010. And it has one of the best track records in the world on trans rights. So now let's take a look, if we may, at same-sex couple Jacob Fauerby and Silas Holst, who won Denmark's Dancing with the Stars. That's right. They're the first same-sex dancing couple. Jacob Fauerby, who is probably on the left in the picture you saw is 42. And his dancing partner, Silas Holst, 36, are now winners of the Dancing Competition. When Fauerby, who was openly gay, was approached to be on the show, he asked to be paired with a male dancer. Something that hasn't happened in the 16 seasons of this Danish version of Dancing with the Stars. His partner, after they won, his partner said, we would not have stood here if Denmark did not have an open mind and also had courage and dared to put us on. It's a sense of pride, the pride of diversity and the Danes. And of course, the US version hasn't featured the same-sex couple. That was going to be my question, too. Wasn't Sherry's daughter signed on there? Chastity was on as a trans man with a woman partner. And they danced with the woman.  They won, and her name is Hannah Brown. No, I'm sorry. Jenna Johnson danced with Ed and Rippon, becoming, he was the first openly gay person to be on this show. But there was no dancing together, right? This year's winner was. There was no same-sex couples. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what about Chas Bono? Chas was on as a trans man and had a woman partner. Well, let's go to Ms. Myanmar, if we may. There's her picture. I'm impressed. The first Miss Universe competitor who is out. She speaks up for LGBT acceptance. Her name is Zwei Zinhitet. She competed as Miss Myanmar in the Miss Universe pageant. She wants to use the platform to help advance LGBT. She's asking for silence. Acceptance in her home country. She's 21 years old. She came out in late November, in which she said, I came to a full realization about my sexual orientation over a long period of time. I have, she's a lesbian. I have that platform now that she's a contestant, that if I say I'm a lesbian, it will have a big impact on the LGBT community back in Burma. The difficult thing is that in Burma, LGBTQ people are not accepted. They're looked down by other people and are being discriminated against.  In Myanmar, there's currently no legal recognition of LGBT rights. Same-gender sexual activity is illegal and punishable by 10 years to life in prison, though that law is not used in practice. And even though you use both names, you're talking about one country, Burma, Myanmar. Right, exactly. Did I say Burma? Yeah. In her quote, it says Burma. Oh, yes. It's also known as Burma. So you don't have to correct the next spell. No, no, we haven't asked you. Because you would. I know. I have two more stories. When can I deliver them? Well, I think you probably have time for one more, and then we'll see how it goes with time. OK, because I really want to talk about the new portrait of Emiliano Zapata. But it's more pressing that I should talk about the Bolivia's Oscar entry, written and directed by Rodrigo Vellat, and adapted from his own story and his hit play. Two main manchas takes the nuanced mantra and places it at the heart of a film, a nuanced mantra written by Paul Monat, a wonderful activist and lost to AIDS. In two main manchas, the heart of the film, which Bolivia chose as its official entry for the Best International Feature at the 92nd Annual Academy Awards, is set in Santa Cruz de la Sierra Bolivia.  And what happens is the father mistakenly skips his son's lover, same-sex lover, in New York.  He talks to Sebastian, his son's lover, in a face-to-face video. It wasn't my intention to call. Nor do I care to get to know you, he coldly tells him. The only thing I want from you, after what has happened, is to stay away. What has happened is that his son, Gabriel, is dead. And let me just show you a clip of that film now. Hola, soy el padre de Gabriel. ¿Dónde está Gabriel a todo esto? Gabriel, está muerto. ¿A qué viniste? Vine a llevarme a mi hijo. If I picked one actor, he would replace the memory of the real Gabriel forever. ¿Pero de dónde querés que saque 10 actores hombres y encima que hagan de gay? Tenemos un elenco, eso en un ejército. ¿Qué quiere decir tu me manques? Te lo dijo varias veces. ¡Bergüenza les debería dar! ¡Bergüenza! Perder un hijo que jamás conocieron. No cambio por ti. And it's got to be out in translation soon. I mean, we found the clip with subtitles because if it's up for the Academy Award, we should be able to see it. Yeah, I wonder if we can get it for the festival. Any festivals that may come up in the future. Okay, Emiliano Zapata, portrait of him, revolutionary hero pictured. And I have a picture now of the portrait. It's too small.  His willy frame is bound by a ribbon, striped with the Mexican tricolor red, white, and green, while his lips pout under his distinctive curved mustache. He's naked. Some of his family is really outraged by this. Some family says it's okay. The Mexican government says free speech. So when will we see it on display in the hallway? I don't know. It's so small. They should have a big one. Well, can you, and I guess you can't. Moving on. Lawyers. Lawyers for the family of transgender Roxanne Hernandez, who died in custody at U.S. immigration, filed a complaint that holds the federal immigration and their contract is responsible for her death. She was 33 years old and was from Honduras. She died on May 25th after being transferred from the Kibola County Correctional Facility, which is a privately owned facility in New Mexico. She died from complications of pneumonia and HIV. She was abused while in custody. And the lawyers intend to prove that her death was preventable. I reported that at the time. And now the new development is that they blocked out the cameras. Yeah. During her death. And Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie talk about the surprising queer story in the movie Bombshell. I really want to see it. This is the first major film after the Me Too movement to delve into sexual harassment experienced by women and tackles the culture at Fox News that allowed Roger Ailes to harass, exploit, and intimidate women. So that should be pretty interesting. 2019 sportsperson of the year, Megan. Rapino. Rapino. Playing the world's game on the world stage under attack by a world leader she dominated. And in doing so without fear, Megan became the voice for so many across the world. Megan is sports illustrated sportsperson of the year. She's just the fourth woman in the award 66 year history to win it unaccompanied. A feat that is both remarkable, athletic achievement and a reflection of entrenched gender bias. She challenged perceptions of her, of female athletes, of all women. She led her teammates three months before their tentpole tournament to suit the US soccer federation for equal pay. Do you have a picture of her on the cover? Yes. And are you going to show it? Yes, I am. May I comment on it? Yes. We were watching Gay USA and Ann North of Coho said maybe they're trying to famer up. Well yeah, they have her in a big gown. Yeah. With some kind of heads on it. We're not sure what kind of heads they are. They're figures. It's a designer gown though. And she refused to go to the White House, which is always a good thing. And a high school girl's soccer team in Berlin's Vermont stage, it's own campaign in support of equal pay. An 11-year-old boy in Genoa, Illinois went viral for his pink-haired Halloween costume, each inspired by her. So there we go. And then we have Hillary Clinton on sex. I thought you weren't going to have enough time. My last story, I can't miss it. Reporter Trish Bendix, who won the 2015 Sarah Petite Memorial Award for Excellence in LGBTQ Media, has made a few comments about Hillary. She said that she, what was it she said? Oh, when she was asked by Howard Stern if she had ever had sex with women, she said, I've never even thought of it. I've never been tempted. I've never been tempted. And it's so frustrating when public figures like Hillary feel the need to dispel lesbian rumors in a way that equates lesbianism or queerness with salaciousness. And that's ultimately what I just like about the way she phrased it. And you know what else she said? I like men, like lesbians don't. It perpetuates the stereotype of the man-hating lesbian that several of us, many of us have to combat every day. I think there's a way to refute untrue ideas about one's own identity without saying something damaging to others. So that's the Hillary story. I'm not surprised by that though, really. Well, I have something to add to Keith's upcoming story. About the census. No, when you talk about the holidays. I already am done. Okay, well let me just, we're having a therapist and an artist on our next show. And for all of the holidays, their name is P.J. DeRosha and we're looking forward to hearing, they're gonna give us tips for the holidays. The holiday sort of effect was for the events. When we deliberately get excluded, we need to create our own events. We need to create our own traditions. And I'm sure. Oh, we're going to. P.J. DeRosha will echo that sentiment. So really quickly, the 2020 census and why LGBTQ plus Vermonters should care about it. First and foremost, the citizenship question, the court has ruled it cannot be included. So that is off the table, regardless of whatever scam may be circulating where they're trying to say, oh, you're going to be asked this, you're not. Census information is totally confidential from sitting on this commission. It is not shared with Homeland Security. It is not shared with ICE. It is not shared with the FBI. It is completely confidential for 72 years. And the reason I stress that is that anybody who does genealogy work relies upon census for who was in the household, who lived nearby. None of that information is released until 72 years after the census has been completed.  However you self-identify is what goes on to the documentation. Starting in March, people will be given the opportunity to do this online. April, you're going to get a written one if you haven't done the online. If your household has not responded and they've got the list from each municipality. That's what they send people, right? Enumerators and that is them. They. The they that they are trying to hire and they're trying to get over 17,000 applications in Vermont so that they'll end up with a real pool that can go out and look. Why we should care about this is because these are. Funding dependents? Funding dependents but also this has to do with districting. So how many representatives a state has? Where those representatives are from? What is the concentration? There is not going to be the opportunity to identify sexual orientation or gender identity. However, there is a provision by relationship status within the household. Married same-sex couple, unmarried same-sex couple and how you choose to use that relationship to the head of the household is entirely up to you. But the conservative right is already saying, oh, it's going to be less than 1% of the population or 1% of those who and we need to be seen. And it has a direct impact on grants for schools in low income districts, school lunch programs, vouchers to pay for housing, supplemental nutrition assistance program, Medicaid seniors. In your story about the South, how many of us, people within the LGBTQ community are twice as likely to be living as poverty as a straight couple is. Also, as I had reported on a previous show for AIDS Awareness Day, 40% of HIV positive individuals rely upon Medicaid to pay for their treatments. This is what's going to drive that funding, looking at what are the resources that come into the state. The estimate that was presented to this commission is that it's approximately $4,000 per identified individual in Vermont for federal monies coming in. That's a significant chunk of money. The other is, you know, just where are people living? You know, what is the population density? What is the age factor? I mean, we continue to talk about the needs of LGBTQ plus elders. If Vermont has a larger demographic within that age population coming out of the census, we're going to qualify from our funding, which is exactly what we want. Also, I heard on NPR today that, I think, as of next year, the population of how many seniors are on the state is really going to skyrocket. And, you know, looking at the census 10 years ago when the unmarried partners was included and the previous census dramatic increase in our representation, and this was from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Undercounts and census data can lead to inaccurate and skewed representation in the federal, state, and local governments that set policy and guidance that can directly affect the health and well-being of LGBTQ people.  Okay. And now I'm told that Ann is going to give a scintillating review of Paris 7 a.m. and the review may be more scintillating than the book, but we're about to find out. Can, should I hold it or is it clear? It's okay. Okay. This is Paris 7 a.m. by Lisa Wheeland. This review appeared in the November 5th issue of the Lambda Literary Review. The book was published in June of 2019. Lisa Wheeland begins her novelistic account of the life of lesbian poet Elizabeth Bishop with a dream. This literary strategy introduces readers from the outset to the trance-like world of the novel in which reverie, memory, and fantasy mingle freely. Stylistically, Wheeland elects the Omit quotation marks and her liberal use of interior monologue, as well as the decision to blend biographical incidents with fictional accounts seem designed to produce a phantasmagoric effect. Chronological markers do occur, however, in the form of dates accompanying the section headings and in a sweeping concluding sequence in which the writer covers 41 years of the poet's life in 27 fragmentary pages. Within each section, short episodic segments add a transitory sense, suggesting the impermanence of experience and the fleeting passage of time. The central fictitious event on which much of the narrative turns derives from a three-week gap in the historical Elizabeth Bishop's Journal during the poet's peristate in June, 1937. Wheeland has inserted into this timeframe a daring rescue of two Jewish infants from Belgium. The fictional Elizabeth hasn't set out to perform this heroic act, but rather her landlady and friend, the historical Clara, Countess de Chabrion, tricks her into it. This landlady is actually rented to Bishop and the poet's friends during their peristate. Still, when the fictional Bishop learns of the plant to smuggle the two babies from Normandy to Paris, she agrees to help with trepidation. This improbable yet tense episode occurs late in the novel, and though it provides the subject of the dream in the prologue, it doesn't resonate throughout the book as the author may have intended it to. The most chilling and potent feature of Paris 7 a.m. concerns its depiction of France in the years immediately preceding the war. Violence lurks just under the surface. And so Elizabeth begins to hear it too, I'm quoting. I dream almost every night about tanks, Elizabeth hears herself say.  In a whisper so violent, Elizabeth hears it as a shout. Similarly, on the way to the famous cabaret, Le Boeuf sur Le Tois, a German workman inexplicably tries to kill Louise with his cargo of logs and shouts that she and Elizabeth are both dogs. As Elizabeth concludes after the cathedral incident, something awful is lying in the shadows in wait, some bloodied menacing monstrous thing that no one can even imagine. The scenes at Le Boeuf de Le Tois simmer with sinister foreboding as well as Elizabeth and her German lover Sigrid comingle with Nazis in an atmosphere where the homosexuality of many patrons is hidden in plain sight. Lisa Whelan captures this ominous circumstance with skill. Lesbian desire is everywhere in this novel. In fact, a disembodied love scene appears in the text possibly after a cabaret visit. Presumably, it is between Sigrid and Elizabeth, but no names are mentioned or personal identifiers provided. So the identity of the participants remains indeterminate. Perhaps Whelan does trying to imitate Bishop's personal reticence about her lesbianism or is simply seeking poetic effect. But it's difficult to tell if a reader unacquainted with Bishop's biography and with the lesbian world of Paris in the 1920s and 30s would understand many of the narrative's sapphic physical and relational nuances. My surmises that in this novel, Lisa Whelan hopes to bring in the reader a poetic rendering through a high wire perpulsive fictional account of the life of a poet whose work she admires and references to Bishop's poetry regularly occur. Indeed, the novel itself is named after a poem Bishop wrote during her Paris years. Of course, some readers may be put off by Whelan's fictional liberties or by the appropriation of parts of the poet's work. A repetition of a key line in Bishop's superb Villanelle I arc, for example, or the alteration of the entire poem in the novel's penultimate chapter, may disappoint readers who appreciate Bishop's poetry on its own terms. Still, one must commend the originality and ambitiousness of Paris 7 a.m. Whelan's fascinating effort does provide an interesting new take on a beloved cultural figure. The novel might also lead readers to any of the several excellent Bishop biographies or back to the poems themselves. For that service alone, Lisa Whelan's engaging book deserves our praise. Very informative. Why, thank you. Maybe I'll read it. You could. It's very experimental. You can't figure out who's talking sometimes or who's acting. And I prefer the nuts and bolts of Bishop's actual biography. Her life is so incredibly interesting on its own terms. I don't know that it needs fictionalized, but... Give it a try. So I should have my nap before I read the book. Maybe. Okay. So our trivia question. Yes. So why did this statewide coalition feel the need to issue such a strong statement and choose not to be anonymous? It might be because 1986 was the year that Vermont tried to pass the Equal Rights Amendment and the issue became... And some of the whole country. And if you eliminate discrimination based upon sex, you're going to allow same-gender marriage and gender-neutral bathrooms. So with that... I think we should, what, to say... Head up, women. Happy holidays. Resist. Resist.