| Ján Husár | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 29, 1982 Nitra, Slovakia, European Union |
| Nationality | Slovak |
| Occupation | Activist |
Jan Husar (born April 29, 1982) is a Slovak activist, marine biologist[1] and wildlife filmmaker.[2] Lives with his wife, labrador and a senegal parrot in Bratislava, also in Brussels and mostly traveling.
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Husar founded SKOSI, which stands for Slovak Open Source Initiative back in 2003 because he was upset with the current situation of egovernment, especially the misuse of public money, loopholes in the electronic standards law and political corruption within the public procurement. Since then is serving as freelance consultant for several governments, EU institutions, NGO and companies. He is also interested in Entrepreneurship. For past two years he is more and more involved with environmental activism and he is studying Oceanography in Exeter and Marine Biology in Oxford. His interest in nature, conservation and wild life filmmaking has became more apparent this year with his new project PS9 (Public Section 9, see Film Making)
PS9 which stands for Public Section Nine (most likely inspired by Ghost in the shell, the Public Security Section 9) is codename for filming nature and mostly underwater short movie production by Mr. Husar. According to the latest video trailer on his Vimeo account the PS9 was filming in South Africa during summer 2011 in places like Sodwana Bay, Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park, Durban and Aliwal Shoal. Previous filming took place in Kornati Croatia and Slovakia. In the short video from Kornati called Kornati - First Venture it's clear in the end credits that the PS9 group consist of more than one person.
SKOSI is the group of activists in the field of open source, software patents and open standards, active in the area of Slovakia with activities in Brussels and several European countries via close partners. [3]
SKOSI was involved in the localization of mozilla.[4] It is supporting the software freedom day.[5] It is supporting the KDE Localization.[6] It is promoting linux [7] It is partner with the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure.
After founding SKOSI, he started to specialize on understanding the EU law and its problems for citizens and local businesses. As a public representative in the IDABC project of European Commission, he is also volunteering his time to other open source projects like software freedom day, ubuntu, and Digital Standards Organization.
Jan is a former board advisor of SFI and currently holds a board member function since 2009. In 2010 he was elected as a vice-president of SFI. SFI is a non-profit company based in the USA whose primary function is to coordinate Software Freedom Day all around the world. All contributors to the success of SFD volunteer their time.[8]
The Digital Standards Organization (DIGISTAN) states that "an open standard must be aimed at creating unrestricted competition between vendors and unrestricted choice for users".[10] Its brief definition of "open standard" (or "free and open standard") is "a published specification that is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle". Its more complete definition as follows:
A key defining property is that an open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to improve upon, trust, and extend an open standard over time."[11]
- "The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organization, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties.
- The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute, and use it freely.
- The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
- There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
This definition is based on the EU's EIF v1 definition of "open standard", but with changes to address what it terms as "vendor capture". They believe that "Many groups and individuals have provided definitions for 'open standard' that reflect their economic interests in the standards process. We see that the fundamental conflict is between vendors who seek to capture markets and raise costs, and the market at large, which seeks freedom and lower costs... Vendors work hard to turn open standards into franchise standards. They work to change the statutory language so they can cloak franchise standards in the sheep's clothing of 'open standard'. A robust definition of "free and open standard" must thus take into account the direct economic conflict between vendors and the market at large."[12]