A top Linux kernel hacker is calling for a boycott of technology conferences in the United States, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation is asking organizers of planned protests to put them on hold while it negotiates with Adobe for the release of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, who was arrested after speaking at Def Con in Las Vegas earlier this week.
The EFF was helping organize protests in seven U.S. cities and Moscow, Russia, on Monday, but EFF online activist Will Doherty asked people on the free-sklyarov email list to postpone action while the EFF meets with Adobe on Monday. However, many list members planning protests Monday said they wouldn't back off until Sklyarov was released from jail.
If you've been following tech news at all this week, you know that Sklyarov was arrested for violating the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes criminals out of those who create programs to circumvent copyright protections, even though no such law exists in his homeland. Sklyarov's crime was developing software that allows buyers of eBooks, the copyrighted digital book format created by Adobe Systems, to back up eBook files or view them on unsupported platforms, such as Linux.
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