Protecting FOSS Assets
A talk given at the National Law School India University by Kenneth Gonsalves - Summary
please add comments if any at the end
Preamble
The topic is an unusual one, not often raised anywhere and I have difficulty understanding it. Question: Do FOSS assets need protection? Answer: No way, on the contrary, it is proprietory software that needs to be protected or it will be smashed - it is proprietory software that is screaming for patents, ban on foss, regulation, restriction and filing suits, twisting arms and generally weeping hysterically. They need protection, not foss.
FOSS vs proprietary software
There is a tendency to ape proprietary software's methods when thinking of FOSS assets and their protection. In proprietory software, the software, surounded by secrecy, copyright, patent, restrictive EULAs, is an asset. But in the FOSS world, how can the software be an asset?
So what are FOSS assets?
FOSS is the child of the internet - no internet, no FOSS. The internet is the first and primary FOSS asset. If the internet is destroyed, controlled or restricted - FOSS would suffer the same fate. But the internet was designed in such a way that it cannot be destroyed, controlled or restricted. So if you want to protect FOSS - protect the internet.
The best FOSS code is developed on publicly available repositories in the full glare of public scrutiny. It is this that gives FOSS code it's unique strength and robustness. An attack against these repostiories is an attack against FOSS. And these repositories are the second most important FOSS asset. So work to protect and defend the repositories. Even this is less important nowadays as web space is cheap and more and more developers are maintaining their own repostiories.
Last, and most important are the masses of FOSS coders. Our greatest asset. No way they are going to be wiped out. Assume the worst - software is patented, repostiories are shut down, internet restricted. Will they stop coding? Will they wait 20 years for a patent to expire before innovating? No. All that will happen is that FOSS would go underground, and the public, wanting innovations will make sure the restrictions vanish. "Nine years of ballet, asshole." -- Shelly Long, to the bad guy after making a jump over a gorge that he
couldn't quite, in "Outrageous Fortune"
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