[Discussioni] Fwd: Washington State Congressman attempts to outlaw GPL
Alessandro Rubini
rubini a gnu.org
Mer 23 Ott 2002 21:22:55 CEST
Interessante. Scusate la lunghezza, ma mi sembra il caso di lasciare
tutto (anche perche` non e` del tutto chiaro chi dice cosa, non
vorrei introdurre errori tagliando nel modo sbagliato).
In fondo trovate due commenti (da un'altra lista). Tutto in anglo,
mi spiace.
> -------- Original Message --------
> Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 11:33:58 -0400
> From: Vin <a1enviro a cloud9.net>
>
>
>> http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/02/10/23/1247236.shtml?tid=4
>
> Washington State Congressman attempts to outlaw GPL
>
> Wednesday October 23, 2002 - [ 12:47 PM GMT ]
>
> Topic - Government
>
> An anonymous reader writes: "Leaders of the New Democrat
> Coalition attempt to outlaw GPL. A call to sign off on
> explicit rejection of "licenses that would prevent or
> discourage commercial adoption of promising cyber security
> technologies developed through federal R & D." has been
> issued by Adam Smith, Congressman for the Ninth District in
> the State of Washington.
>
> It's already signed off on by Rep. Tom Davis(R-Va), Chairman
> of Government Reform Subcomittee on Technology, and Rep.
> Jim Turner (D-TX) Ranking Member of the same committee,
> with the backing of Rep. Jim Davis (D-FL), and Rep. Ron
> Kind (D-WI).
>
> It's a note to fellow New Democrats under the guise of
> protecting commercial interest's right to make money from
> the fruits of federal R & D, and to sign off on an attached
> letter to Richard A. Clarke, Chair of the President's
> Critical Infrastructure.
>
> They are attempting to convince Clarke, Chair of the
> President's that licensing terms such as "those in the GNU
> or GPL" are restrictive, preclude innovation, improvement,
> adoption and establishment of commercial IP rights.
>
> Let's take a look at the highlights:
>
> 1) They use the Internet, by virtue of TCP/IP, as "proof" of
> their thesis.
> 2) They state that you cannot improve OR adopt OR
> commercialize GPL software.
> 3) They state that you cannot integrate GPL'd software with
> proprietery software.
> 4) They say you should keep publicly funded code away from
> the public sector, so that proprietary interests can make
> money from the work.
> 5) They equate a lack of understanding of the GPL with valid
> reasoning against it.
>
>
> In essence, that non-proprietary interests should not be
> allowed to use, adopt, improve, or make money from the
> work. That taxpayers should pay for it twice. And that
> nobody should be able to stop commercial entities from
> taking publicly funded code, they will then close off.
>
> Write or fax each of the Congressmen mentioned as supporting
> this, and let them know they have been given bad
> information and that categorically anti-opensource and
> anti-GPL stance will be reflected at voting time:
>
> Rep. Jim Davis
> 424 Cannon House Office Building
> Washington, D.C. 20515
> Phone: (202) 225-3376
> Fax: (202) 225-5652
> Webmail: http://www.house.gov/jimdavis/message.html
>
>
> Rep. Tom Davis
> 306 Cannon House Office Building
> Washington, D.C. 20515-4611
> Phone: (202) 225-1492
> Fax: (202) 225-3071
>
>
> Rep. Ron Kind
> 1713 Longworth HOB
> Washington, D.C. 20515
> Phone: 202.225.5506
> Fax: 202.225.5739
>
>
> Rep. Adam Smith
> 116 Cannon House Office Building
> Washington, D.C. 20515
> Phone: 202-225-8901
> Fax: 202-225-5893
> E-Mail: http://www.house.gov/adamsmith/contact/contact.htm l
>
>
> Rep. Jim Turner
> 208 Cannon HOB
> Washington, DC 20515
> Phone: (202) 225-2401
> Fax: (202) 225-5955
>
>
> For those without e-mail listed, email them at:
> http://www.house.gov/writerep/
>
>
> Here's the note to the New Democrats from Smith, Kind and J.
> Davis:
>
> Support Innovation in Cybersecurity -- Sign The Attached
> Dear Colleague
>
> Deadline: Friday, October 18th
>
> Dear New Democrat Colleague:
>
> Attached is a letter that is being sent to Dick Clarke, the
> Chair of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection
> Board. As he shapes the "National Strategy"on
> cybersecurity, it is important to affirm that government
> R&D should be made available under intellectual property
> licenses that allow for further development and
> commercialization of that work. Licenses such as the
> General Public License (GPL) are problematic and threaten
> to undermine innovation and security. I urge you to sign
> this letter.
>
> As you know, the basis of the Internet - the TCP/IP protocol
> - is a result of federal R&D efforts at DARPA. The
> advancement and commercialization of this research provided
> significant economic growth as well as gains in
> productivity and efficiency.
>
> Public-private partnerships have been hallmarks of
> technological innovation and government has played a
> positive role in fostering innovation by allowing the
> private sector to develop commercial products from the
> results of publicly funded research. As such it is
> important that the National Strategy reject any licenses
> that would prevent or discourage commercial adoption of
> promising cybersecurity technologies developed through
> federal R&D.
>
> The terms of restrictive license's - such as those in the
> GNU or GPL - prevent companies from adopting, improving,
> commercializing and deriving profits from the software by
> precluding companies from establishing commercial IP rights
> in any subsequent code. Thus, if government R&D creates a
> security innovation under a restrictive license, a
> commercial vendor will not integrate that code into its
> software. So long as government research is not released
> under licensing terms that restrict commercialization,
> publicly funded research provides an important resource for
> the software industry.
>
> New Democrats have long supported public-private
> partnerships -- it's important that any licenses do not
> compromise a company's intellectual property rights in
> their own technology. I encourage you to sign the attached
> letter to Mr. Clarke. If you have any questions, please
> contact Mike Mullen (Rep. Jim Turner; 5-2401) or John
> Mulligan (Rep. Adam Smith; 5-8901). Thank you.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Adam Smith Member of Congress
> Ron Kind Member of Congress
> Jim Davis Member of Congress
>
>
> Text of attached letter to Mr. Clarke
>
> Congress of the United States
> Washington DC 20515
> October 8, 2002
>
>
> Honorable Richard A. Clarke
> Chair, President's Critical Infrastructure Board
> The White House
> Washington, DC 20500
>
>
> Dear Mr. Clarke:
>
> We are writing to submit our views on the National Strategy
> to Secure Cyberspace that you circulated for comment on
> September 18, 2002. We believe the National Strategy should
> explicitly recognize that overall cyber security will
> improve if federally funded research and development is made
> available to Americans under intellectual property licenses
> that allow for further development and commercialization of
> that work product. This is a long-standing federal
> principle that should be explicitly stated in the National
> Strategy.
>
> The leading example of this principle is DARPA's research in
> the 1970s that resulted in TCP/IP - the key set of
> communications standards that form the technical basis of
> today's Internet. These communications standards were made
> available under licensing terms allowing their integration
> into commercial software, which in turn enabled a wide
> range of companies to develop innovative communication and
> networkingservices.
>
> Taxpayers are still realizing a tremendous return on that
> federal investment through Internet driven productivity
> gains, economic growth, job creation, and individual
> empowerment that could not have been predicted by the
> federal, academic and private sector researchers who
> developed TCP/IP. However, none of these returns would have
> been possible unless the research was made available under
> licensing terms that allowed the private sector to
> commercialize TCP/IP. Nor would the government and industry
> have enjoyed the fruits of this economic activity-- fruits
> that have funded additional research and development--
> unless it had been made available for commercialization.
>
> It would be very unfortunate - indeed, counterproductive and
> contrary to the public-private partnership that is at the
> core of the national cyber security strategy - if companies
> were reluctant to adopt promising security technologies
> produced by federal research for fear that doing so may
> compromise their intellectual property rights in their own
> technology.
>
> For these reasons, it is essential that the National
> Strategy affirm federal tradition by explicitly rejecting
> licenses that would prevent or discourage commercial
> adoption of promising cyber security technologies developed
> through federal R&D. We commend your hard work on an issue
> of pressing importance, appreciate the opportunity to
> participate in this process, and trust you'll consider our
> views when you issue the final version of your report.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> (signed)
> Tom Davis
>
> (signed)
> Jim Turner
> Ranking Member, Reform Subcommittee on Technology
>
> NOTE: Their letter is addressed to Mr. Clarke who has *not*
> expressed support of this initiative."
> From: Brian Behlendorf <brian a collab.net>
> To: "Benjamin J. Tilly " <ben_tilly a operamail.com>
> cc: fsb a crynwr.com
> Subject: Re: A few here may have an opinion on this
> Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 11:08:53 -0700 (PDT)
> On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Benjamin J. Tilly wrote:
>> http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/02/10/23/1247236.shtml?tid=4
>>
>> A Washington State senator is trying to make it government
>> policy to not support research that produces GPLed
>> software because the GPL is a license that "would prevent
>> or discourage commercial adoption" of technologies.
>>
>> Yeah, right.
>
> Everyone knows my biases, but I think there's a pretty reasonable point
> here. A "university" license would, in my opinion, be the most
> appropriate license for government-funded software to be released under.
> Simply by virtue of being compatible with all other existing licenses,
> Open Source or not, it makes the software more widely usable, and thus
> more valuable to society as a whole. Since a properly-formed university
> license is compatible with the GPL, it would also not prevent government
> funds from going to funds that are based on GPL software, for example the
> Linux kernel. If I were a senator I'd be tempted to sign onto such
> legislation. I'd look very closely, though, for any easter eggs left by
> software vendors from Washington State.
>
> Brian
> From: "Benjamin J. Tilly " <ben_tilly a operamail.com>
> To: <brian a collab.net>
> Cc: fsb a crynwr.com
> Subject: Re: A few here may have an opinion on this
> Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 23:55:39 +0500
> Brian Behlendorf <brian a collab.net> wrote:
> [...]
>
> This movement is specifically aimed at keeping the
> government from distributing things like its security
> enhancements for the Linux kernel. There are two issues
> here.
>
> 1) If the government wants to use open source
> software, and that software does not meet the
> government's needs, then it is reasonable for the
> government to improve that software.
>
> 2) Governments are better suited than private
> enterprise to address the tragedy of the commons.
> Security in particular suffers from this, and
> actions meant to improve computer security should
> address popular software, regardless of license.
>
> Both of these are legitimate public policy concerns which
> make it appropriate for the government to do security
> work on open source projects like Linux and Apache.
> Microsoft doesn't want the government to do this work for
> the obvious reason that it legitimizes competition to
> Microsoft, and does it in an area where they are weak.
>
> As far as I am concerned, that is Microsoft's problem.
> When Microsoft sells to the government, they undoubtably
> are paid money for a contract that is contingent upon
> certain features being developed. And the government
> spends money giving private companies - Microsoft
> included - feedback on security issues. Why are these
> actions OK when a purely private interest (such as
> Microsoft) is the direct recipient of the public
> largess, but not when it is an open source community?
>
> Cheers,
> Ben
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