Reality Hacking
What is the current situation at the Pula Hacklabu? Although the Hacklab works under the auspices of the Monteparadiso Collective for quite some years, it was never as organized as it is now. The newly opened Hack Lab doesn't attract the crowds at the expected levels, but we hope that it will change soon. For the moment, we have a great number of volunteers that are willing to learn as much about Linux as they possibly could. What is the mission of Pula Hacklab? We offer free internet access. It may sound a bit weird to the people in Europe, where the internet is a common, easily accessible thing. Here, on the other hand, it remains important issue, for it is available to a small portion of households. The spreading of free software in our Hacklab contributes to spreading the idea on other social activities. We are proud that there are people who learned here to work exclusively on Linux platforms. They have never even seen Microsoft. For now, our work is restricted to providing informaito nover the internet, but we hope to train enough people to be able to spread information through free software. Why would it be good to use free software? The simplest answer may sound banal, but here it is: because it is free of charge. That is what attracts the majority of people that are attracted to it. The truth is, if we may say so, that when you own free software, you truly own it. The licensed software, Microsoft, for instance, is just rented, which means that you can only purchase the license, regardless of whether it is a commercial company or an NGO that did the purchase. If they stop paying the lisense, the company or the organizations may have all the original CDs for every PC they own, they don't own the software on the discs, therefore, they can't legally use it. For civic associations, there is no alternative to using free software, regardless if it's Linux or some other similar operational system. However, the pirated copies of Microsoft products are in a widespread use here. They remain cheap, and even free of charge, in the black market... It is still possible to pirate the software, and it remains developped. But, the piracy will have to stop one day, together with some other things. And I don't think it's in anybody's interest to pay in excess of 50,000 kuna per PC for the software it works on. On the other hand, even the use of pirated licensed software is beneficial to the companies that make it, in this case, almost exclusively Microsoft. The users of pirated licensed software test that software for free, and they promote it for free. It would be the same if you put a huge NIKE sign on your house, without any compensation. Even then, it would be more logical, for once you buy the shoes, you do own them. They belong to you and are not just rented. A TranshackMeeting took place last year in Pula. Would you give us your impressions from that experience? Excellent! It was a great experience of communicating with representatives of hacklabs from all over Europe. This year's meeting will take place in some other place in Europe, but we hope to start holding local transhackmeetings on Croatian level. The idea is to get the media activists and, for that matter, activists in general together, not just to work as computer hackers, but as people that hack the daily life, from lifestyles to ways thay pay the bills. That concept is called reality hacking in the West, and it means, basically, that you are the one with control over your own life. |
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