[Fsf-friends] Is this true?

[Mahesh T Pai]

Frederick Noronha wrote:

 > Any government with the political will can use
 > compulsory licensing to permit third parties to copy and distribute

Not quite.  Compulsory licensing is available *only* if the owner of
the right (patent, copyright) refuses to release the material in the
concerned jurisdiction.

Relevant provisions for MS Windows, (coz it is a 'foreign work'' wrt 
India) are in Sec. 32A of Copyright Act.

Extracts from S. 32A:-
"(a) The copies of such edition are not made available in India; or
(b) Such copies have not been put on sale in India for a period of six 
months, (bla... bla ... )"

This *cannot* apply to unpublished works, only if the work was 
published once, (in India) and subsequently, there is a refusal to 
republish; or, if the work is of foreign origin, published in the 
foreign country, and the owner refuses to publish it in India, can 
this provision be applied; that too, after giving them sufficient 
notice.

So, do not dream of prising open the can of worms, oops, the cache of 
source code coz it was not published any where.

:(

Mahesh T Pai.