Hi, I agree, going to a place like Vietnam, where freedoms and human rights are respected even less than Brussels or Canada or Poland or France, to talk about software freedom and computer users rights, will promote awareness of the overall concepts. It perhaps in some small way may even help gain respect for them. Looking westwards: The UK isn't safe, its full of ... obnoxious British people, like me :-) And, worse, British policemen; our Brasilian friends might get shot on the metro if their laptop cables are not tucked into their bags. Also, I suspect the UK is complicit in the USA torturing its citizens, and I know Canada is. While interesting, such broad political issues should not be decisive for LGM, IMO. For a libre graphics event, what matters is the legal status of software freedoms in a host country. This means we should avoid countries who criminalise free exchange of software ideas and reverse engineering: the USA is top of that list. is Vietnam even on that list? Regards, Dave <blockquote>On 10 Jun 2010, 1:17 PM, "Stani" <<a href="http://spe.stani.be">spe.stani.be</a>@<a href="http://gmail.com">gmail.com</a>> wrote: On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 1:17 PM, Marcos Diaz <<a href="mailto:markos@nathive.org">markos@nathive.org</a>> wrote: >> I don't believe boycotti...How is hosting the LGM in Vietnam forcing anyone attending the LGM to ignore the human rights violations of the Vietnamese government? Maybe you'll start reading about it and become more conscious of it. I have had many exchange contacts with artist activists from non-western countries. They always laugh with our 'superior' track record of human rights. For them Western democracies are not innocent at all. Maybe in their own country, but not in the world abroad. For me free software is not about judging governments in the first place, but above all about building communities. I think it would be rude to exclude the Vietnamese or Asian communities from hosting the LGM. As Dang Hong Phuc noticed the Asian community is not very present in the Free Software movement, although they like to take part. We are not going to change that from our comfortable broadband connections remotely. Refusing them to bridge this gap, is not very ethical either. I agree with Cyrille, that hosting the LGM in Vietnam rather promotes freedom, than supports human rights violations. _______________________________________________ CREATE mailing list <a href="mailto:CREATE@lists.freedesktop.org">CREATE@lists.freedesktop.org</a> htt...</blockquote>