Turning open source users into criminals

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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Open source software is anti-capitalism and undermines intellectual property. It’s not a new claim against free and open source software, but now a new report suggests that a pro-proprietary lobby group has not only been pushing this line around the globe but is also looking to get pro-open source countries listed on the US’ Special 301 watchlist.

The Special 301 watchlist is a list of countries that don’t “adequately” conform to the USA’s definition of intellectual property protection. It’s a list that is most often used in pressuring countries to conform to US guidelines around pharmaceutical and counterfeiting. Essentially, it is a list of countries considered to be “anti-capitalism”.

According to a report by Andres Guadamuz, a lecturer in law at the University of Edinburgh, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), an umbrella group for organisations such as the MPAA and RIAA, has requested that the US Trade Representative list countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India on its Special 301 watchlist because they use open source software.

It’s laughable but the IIPA is apparently serious when it says that the use of open source software “weakens the software industry”. According to Guadamuz’s report the IIPA uses the Indonesian government’s recent announcement that it was encouraging the use of free and open source software in government departments as an example of the threat posed by open source software. The IIPA recommendation says: 

“The Indonesian government’s policy… simply weakens the software industry and undermines its long-term competitiveness by creating an artificial preference for companies offering open source software and related services, even as it denies many legitimate companies access to the government market … As such, it fails to build respect for intellectual property rights and also limits the ability of government or public-sector customers (e.g., State-owned enterprise) to choose the best solutions.”

It sounds crazy and is deeply flawed. The idea that a government recommending the use of free and open source software is actually weakening the software industry as a whole is the type of generalisation the Business Software Alliance is particularly good at. How is it possible that greater competition in the world of software, provided by open source software, can actually be weakening the industry? No doubt the IIPA wouldn’t be saying the same if the Indonesian government had recommended using proprietary software.

But the real kicker, and the one that never fails to annoy me, is the idea that open source software somehow undermines intellectual property. The IIPA says that by recommending free and open source software, Indonesia is “fail[ing] to build respect for intellectual property rights”. What the IIPA is actually saying is that Indonesia is failing to build respect for the IIPA’s narrow interpretation of intellectual property rights.

Free and open source software has a very strong tradition of complying with software licences. In fact the open source movement is as much about respect for software licensing as it is about software. Because a piece of software is free doesn’t necessarily mean that it is illegal. Free and open source software has a strong legal basis and just because this doesn’t match the IIPA’s definition of “property rights” doesn’t give it the right to try and label countries as enemies of capitalism.

Despite the perception that free and open source software is a socialist movement it could be argued that FOSS is in fact very much part of the world of capitalism. The idea that a better product can be produced, at a lower cost, than closed source software is surely just capitalism at work? Surely trying to criminalise the use of open source software is in fact worse than merely recommending that government departments use free and open source software?

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not represent those of MyBroadband.