Railroads, software, and laws

August 15, 2008

Yesterday I read an article in The New York Times about a judicial decision on a case related to FLOSS. It goes:

In a ruling Wednesday, the federal appeals court in Washington said that just because a software programmer gave his work away did not mean it could not be protected.

The New York Times, 2008

This means that now a company will think better the option of taking a piece of FLOSS code to close it and sell it as a proprietary code. The code in question was a Java Model Railroad Interface, apparently a popular software among model train hobbyists. A company (Kam Industries) was using the code and selling its “Software for the Digital RailRoad” (name that is a trade mark of the company). Anyway as Jhon Markoff put it in his article: Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software.

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Due to time constraints I will be working only on the English version of this site. I apologize for that.

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EULA

July 29, 2008

Having lunch with someone that was familiar with my research, I was asked: What about the accountability of Free Libre Open Source Software? Who is responsible if something goes wrong with my work and costs money? I answered with other question: Do you have idea of how accountable are the software you are using right now?

Of course, my friend did not have idea. So for people like him I offer the following exercise:

Which of the following excerpts is part of the License Terms of Microsoft Vista (Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate):

  1. LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES. You can recover from ****** only direct damages up to the amount you paid for the software. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect o incidental damages.
  2. Disclaimer of Warranty. THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

If you pick 1, you are right. The first excerpt is section 25 of the Microsoft Software License Terms for Windows Vista, and the second one is the section 15 of the Version 3 of the GNU General Public License.

Assuming that you did not pay anything for the software under the GNU license, more or less both excerpts say the same. Therefore accountability is not an issue.

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iGov 2008

July 23, 2008

I came back from Manchester. The IGov Research Institute 2008 (the i is for International, Interdisciplinary, Innovative) took place at this nice city, specifically at the University of Salford. During eight days speakers from the academic and government side lectured and carried out activities related to the government, communities in general, and technology. In this venue, the topics were broad: research methodologies, GIS in the government, urban regeneration, perspectives of private-public partnerships, communities using Internet tool to reach government (I will write later about the “community reports” later), and social perspectives of the Internet (Bowling Alone vs. Bowling Together).

The experience was academically and personally enriching. It helped me to included new perspectives to my thinking about the information technology – government problem. I recommend the event to any PhD student that is interested in the topic.

I want to thank to the Center for Technology in Government for the opportunity and to the College of Information Sciences and Technology of Penn State for the support.

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Against Intellectual Monopoly (the book)

July 2, 2008

Against Intellectual Monopoly is a book by Michele Boldrin and David L. Levine that, Monopolymaking honor to its title, can be downloaded on its website. The material is really interesting and full of supported examples and claims. Although the sources are well documented, you won’t find all the endnotes in the main text. The authors have placed at the end of each chapter for your convenience.

The main idea of the book is that evidence goes against the notion of intellectual monopoly as a good mechanism to stimulate innovation and “as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty.” Basically, the authors try to explain that intellectual property can not be considered in the same way that ordinary property.

A must read if you going to redact certain kind of policies.

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The Peruvian case

June 18, 2008

When you look on the Internet for governments and FLOSS, the case of Peru is one of the first you are going to find. The letter that the Peruvian congressman David Villanueva Nuñez wrote to Microsoft is a classic.

Nevertheless, there is not a Peruvian legislative tool that makes FLOSS mandatory or recommends its use in public settings. What exists is the Law  28612 (2005) that recognizes the existence of FLOSS and opens the door to any governmental institution to consider this kind of software. The regulation of the Law (Decree 24-2006-PCM) gives the guidelines of the technical report that should be written prior any software purchase (cost analysis, risks, etc.)

If you want more information about the FLOSS movement in Peru, I recommend you to contact the people of  APESOL (they also have a cool banner):

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Going bilingual

May 29, 2008

There is now a spanish version of this blog. I have not spend too much time in the design, so it looks almost like this one. In addition to the language, you can see the diference on a small flag at the top left corner of the header. That’s the flag of my country. I am Venezuelan.

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Ecuador at 1014

May 21, 2008

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Good news! The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa Delgado, passed a decree making mandatory the use of Free Libre Open Source Software in all Ecuador’s public administration systems. The official announcement can be found in the Presidencia website, or you can download the Decree 1014 here.

The Decree 1014 includes the four freedoms in its definition of Software Libre, but it also lets the door open for the use of privative software on the absence of a FLOSS solution (for some people that is not a good idea). Nevertheless there is something innovative in this Decree: the government will have a local-centered priority system to acquire software (FLOSS or privative). The government will prefer software solutions according to the following order:

  1. National solutions that boost technological sovereignty and autonomy.
  2. Regional solutions with national components.
  3. Regional solutions with national providers.
  4. International solutions with national components.
  5. International solutions with national providers.
  6. International solutions.

It feels good when governments have burst of creativity.

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Printing

May 14, 2008

While I was visiting Venezuela, I observed that most of the printers that you find in a governmental office were HP (at least on those offices that I visited). A person, that is a subject in my thesis so I cannot talk about him/her, explained to me why HP was dominant. I won’t go further in his/her explanation (you would have to read my thesis), but you could check the page of the Linux Foundation. Specifically that is the page that describe how Linux-friendly are the printers by brand. Then, you will understand.

The government is one of the biggest buyers of office supplies in any country (that includes printers and ink). If I were a printer company, I would try to approach the FLOSS community.

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Teaching why or teaching how?

May 7, 2008

I have talked with several advocates of the Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS). From those conversations, I have learned that a better name for this space could be publiFLOSS. Basically, I agree with them. The software that a government uses should provide to users the four freedoms:

  1. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
  2. The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
  3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
  4. The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

(GNU Project)

Now, the argument begins when some of the advocates consider that these ideas should be digested first as philosophical lessons. And then, after that all the population is aware of the freedoms and its connotation (not only for the software sector, but to the human knowledge in general), it is when a government should initiate a migration process.

I think that if you are going to decide between teaching why or teaching how, the last one should be your election. Awareness campaigns are necessary, but you need to provide hands-on expediences to the people you want to convince about why FLOSS is a better option. If the people read a FLOSS awareness document using proprietary software, it is possible that they don’t pay too much attention to it.

My FLOSS activist friends, please try to see the process in the same way you would see parents making a reluctant child to go to school everyday. They always try their best, and they do not stop sending their child to school if he or she does not understand the reasons. It could sound presumptuous, but parents know better.

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I’m back

April 29, 2008

I have been absent for a while. During the last six weeks, I was collecting data for my Thesis at Venezuela. I visited three different locations (Caracas, Mérida, and Maracaibo) and participated on three events all related to Software Libre. With the data from the interviews and a good amount of documentation (including the new Venezuelan GNU/Linux distribution CANAIMA), I think I have enough data for my dissertation.

An early conclusion: the migration process to FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source Software) in Venezuela can be compared to the developing process of a FLOSS project; although not all the people agree on how, why, or what, all the efforts add a positive result.

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