LWN.net News from the source
Columnist Dan Gillmor tells us to get involved and pressure government for better laws:
Mr. Gillmor tells us that we need to "reeducate" Congress and press technology companies to be more assertive about the rights and needs of its customers, rather than those of big media. With enough political pressure, our rights can be preserved.
Before going off to pressure Congress (or Parliament, or whatever), though, it is worth taking a look at another view. Declan McCullagh, who has covered Congress and technology for years, has recently posted a column questioning the value of the political path:
His suggestion, instead, is to take the classic cypherpunk approach: write code.
He has a point: had Phillip Zimmermann not written PGP when he did, the battle for the right to use strong encryption may well have been lost a decade ago.
In general, the wide diffusion of technology makes it harder to outlaw or control that technology. In 1990, it might just have been possible to pass a CBDTPA-like law which would have made the distribution of free operating systems impossible. In 2002, Linux and *BSD are everywhere, serving many critical functions; outlawing them is not a practical possiblity. Hackers should, indeed, be creating and distributing code. Getting that code out where it can not be recalled is an important activity for the defense of our freedom.
But wouldn't it be a nicer world if free software hackers did not need to fear arrest and incarceration for releasing the wrong code? Wouldn't it be better if copyright law were to swing back toward the longstanding values of fair use, first sale, and compromise between control and the free exchange of ideas? To claim that the only worthwhile work is writing code is to see the future as a sort of guerilla war against an entrenched copyright regime. This does not sound like a fun future, and it should not be seen as inevitable.
Sustained political effort can yield results. But success requires engaging and interest and support of a large number of people. Governmental representatives can easily ignore the noise from a small group of concerned programmers; they need to hear from a wider constituency before they will pay attention. Somehow we need to get Aunt Tillie worried about copyright law. That is going to be a difficult task, but it's an important one.
The DSSA is strict and unambiguous in its requirements. If a given software package does not come with source, and the ability to modify and redistribute that source, the state of California would not be able to buy it. If no suitable open source package exists for, say, the management of mineral rights or the operation of automated tollbooths, then state would simply have to do without. Chances are, some of the operations of the state of California would be adversely affected by this law.
The proposed law is extreme, and its chances of passage are minimal. Which is just as well. Imagine the backlash that would result once people figured out that, since nobody has gotten around to creating a SourceForge project for welfare case management, tracking of health insurance complaints, or the secure creation of drivers licenses, the state would no longer be able to perform those functions. This law would not last long.
More generally, free software is supposed to be about choices and freedom. That includes the freedom to choose software that does not necessarily meet the Open Source Definition. There are situations where a mandate of openness makes sense for governments: file formats for the storage of public data and electronic voting software come readily to mind. It is certainly in the interests of governments - and the governed - to use free software in situations where that software can do the job. But a heavy-handed law that requires the use of free software in all situations - even where such software does not exist - is excessive and counterproductive. World Domination is best achieved through better software and respect for freedom, not by legislative fiat.
Beyond that, there are a few things of interest that have come out of this LinuxWorld iteration, including:
See this week's Linux in Business page for more LinuxWorld press releases than you would ever really want to see. The Linux business world has changed, but LinuxWorld still seems to be its meeting place.
This arrangement does not lack its good features. SourceForge becomes more interoperable and gains a new marketing channel. No details have been released, of course, but it is reasonable to expect that IBM will help support SourceForge.net's continued existence as part of this deal. Given the obvious cost of running a facility like SourceForge and the number of free software projects which depend on it, this is good news for the free software community.
The fact remains, however, that SourceForge is moving steadily away from free software. The site itself has not been pure free software for some time, and is now becoming a showcase for IBM's proprietary applications. There has not been a release of the SourceForge site code - the free part - since November, 2001. References to "open source" are most rare on the VA Software web site. Even the VA Software products FAQ shows an interesting emphasis:
SourceForge runs on SPARC based Solaris servers using Solaris version 8 10/01 and higher. SourceForge also runs on Red Hat Linux versions 7.1 and higher on Intel processor-based platforms.
Almost exactly one year ago, Eric Raymond posted a message on how SourceForge wasn't really going proprietary:
Given that, it is interesting to note that Mr. Raymond's name has been quietly dropped from VA's Board of Directors page.
We are, thus, in a position where a large portion of the free software community's work is hosted on a site owned by a company that no longer sees free software as part of its mission. The concentration of projects onto a single site (any single site) has been a cause of concern for some time; now it makes the community's position look truly precarious. SourceForge is still useful to VA as a demonstration of the scale on which its software can work. But it's an expensive advertisement which is increasingly being turned to the interests of those who are paying the bills. SourceForge remains a valuable contribution to the free software community, as it has been for years. But the need for alternatives (beyond Savannah and Berios, which are a good start) is more urgent than ever.
Thanks yet again for your support. We'll do our best to keep you informed as things happen.
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
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