[ale] Two awesome essays on open source and copyright

[Michael D. Hirsch]

There are two really spectacular essays I've just been made away of.
The first was also on slashdot yesterday, so you may have heard of it
already, but if not, check it out.  Apparently Peru is trying to pass
a bill requiring all government software purchases be free software.
The local MS rep wrote a letter expaining the errors in the bill and
Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nuñez, Congressman of the Republica of
Perú, wrote back explaining in fine detail the error of his arguments.
It is perhaps the finest reading of this sort I have ever read.  He
maintained a polite veneer while totally destroying the MS arguments.
A classic example of cutting someone down without ever uttering an
objectionable sentence.

Dr. Villanueva's position is strengthened in that a government has
additional responsibilities that a corporation doesn't; it must maintain
records for arbitrarily long times.  Thus open source and open formats
become essential.  Truly a wonderful read.  (See below for some nice
excerpts.) 

Going back and reading the slashdot discussion of Villanueva's letter
lead me to another impressive article on kuro5hin:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/25/1345/03329 

This is a reprint of the seminal speech in English parliment about
copyright law.  In it the author, Thomas Babbington Macaulay, explains
the evils inherent in copyright extending long after death.  His
speech is equally relevant today, over 150 years later, but given in
a wonderfully literate style that you would never hear today in congress.

The person posting the article to Kuro5hin (jolly st nick) did a very
nice job looking up many of the more obscure references.

--Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: Luigidigi <luigidigi at cwpanama.net>
To: ale at ale.org
Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 14:58:44 
To: farber at cis.upenn.edu
Subject: Open Source programs for Peru's government

In a letter to the GM of Microsoft Peru, Peruvian congressman Dr Edgar 
David Villanueva Nuñez trashes every argument and FUD the MS machine 
throws at the Peruvian government, point by point.
The original letter from MS Peru was with regards to a bill in the 
Peruvian congress that aims at using Open Source programs for its 
administrative government offices.
Mr Villanueva explains knowleagebly and with details why the Open Source 
programs are better for a country like Peru. Well worth the time to read 
it, it should be obligatory reading at Washington DC.

Read the letter here
<http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:TvfSi6UFJpQC:www.gnu.org.pe/resmseng.html+&hl=en&lr=lang_en>
or at:
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:TvfSi6UFJpQC:www.gnu.org.pe/resmseng.html+&hl=en&lr=lang_en

A few excerpts, in no particular order:

"The inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed 
as one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software 
community; whereas, unfortunately, it has been in the area of proprietry 
software. As an example, the condemnation by the Commercial Court of 
Nanterre, France, on 27th September 2001 of Microsoft Corp. to a penalty 
of 3 million francs in damages and interest, for violation of 
intellectual property (piracy, to use the unfortunate term that your 
firm commonly uses in its publicity)."

"To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is 
indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow 
control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to 
third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public 
are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the 
citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the 
world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the 
source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy code*."

"In addition, a reading of your opinion would lead to the conclusion 
that the State market is crucial and essential for the proprietary 
software industry, to such a point that the choice made by the State in 
this bill would completely eliminate the market for these firms. If that 
is true, we can deduce that the State must be subsidising the 
proprietary software industry. In the unlikely event that this were 
true, the State would have the right to apply the subsidies in the area 
it considered of greatest social value; it is undeniable, in this 
improbable hypothesis, that if the State decided to subsidize software, 
it would have to do so choosing the free over the proprietary, 
considering its social effect and the rational use of taxpayers money."


Ehem, I need this guy to represent me. :)


Luis Lima

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