[Fsf-friends] [OFFTOPIC] Three views on Free/Libre and Open Source Software...

[V. Sasi Kumar]

On Wed, 2002-11-27 at 16:19, energon wrote:
> Anybody care to relate GPL software with the science of Ayurveda ?
> (since Ayurveda is non-proprietory, and doesn't have any side effects
> ;)
> errm...strings attached :)
> 
> Just a thought.
> -energon

Strange coincidence: Here is the editorial in the current issue of the
magazine Science India:

Ayurveda, IPR and GNU

Ayurveda is the science of living a healthy life, developed and
propagated by ancient Indian sages like Susrutha, Charaka and scores of
others. It was not just about how to cure illnesses, but also about how
to live in a manner that helps the body to retain its health. As such,
it was knowledge useful to everyon, in fact, required knowledge for
everyone.

Ayurveda made use of plant and other material commonly available in most
places. It is said that hardly any plant in the world is devoid of
medicinal properties. There is the story about an unusual test given to
his students by a teacher of Ayurveda: he used to ask his pupils to go
into the open world and return with the first plant they find that is of
no medicinal value. Only those who returned empty handed qualified to
pass.

Traditionally, practitioners of Ayurveda used to give prescriptions
explaining the method of preparation of the medicines to be used by the
patient. It is believed that ayurvedic medicines are more effective when
freshly prepared. Only when people, especially in the urban areas, found
it difficult to obtain the necessary ingredients and go through the
cumbersome procedures involved in preparing the medicines, did readymade
medicines become popular. Even today there are ayurvedic physicians who
recommend that freshly prepared medicines be used, when possible. There
never was any restriction on the right to prepare medicines. Naturally,
when the preparation is done by the near and dear of the patient, they
would take special care to ensure quality. There was no need for any
brand name to 'ensure' quality. There was no IPR. The only restriction
was that knowledge would be given only to those who deserve it. One of
the conditions used to be, and even today is in many tribal communities,
that the knowledge acquired would be used onluy for helping others, not
for one's own gain.

Look how things have changed with the introduction of the patent regime
and IPR. Knowledge has now become a commodity to be carefully marketed
to maximise one's own benefits. Even life saving drugs are not allowed
to be manufactured freely for fear that the benefits that should accrue
to a few individuals would diminish. Knowledge today has become a means
of exploitation. And restrictive regimes like the IPR only help the
exploiters.

There is a close parallel in the case of something as modern as computer
software. There was a time when programs for running on computers used
to be written by people wo work on computers, and they used to freely
exchange these programs, thus saving a lot of work in each individual
programmer rewriting them. With software companies restricting the use
and exchange of program codes, this freedom was gradually eroded, until
companies started taking legal action against users who dared to go
against their licensing norms. This was when the movement against
restrictions in software began and the Free Software Foundation was
established by Richard Stallman and others. Today the world is moving
towards software freedom, although laws favouring proprietary software
still exist in most countries.

IPR and other restrictive regimes help a few people to exploit the vast
majority. And they use the knowledge they have carefully preserved to
achieve this. The only means of countering this is by the widespread
dissemination of knowledge, without any restriction. The software
community started doing this through the GNU General Public Licence. The
scientific community already has made a few steps in this direction.
Images taken by astronomical telescopes are made available over the
Internet after one year. At least a few journals have started putting
their articles for free download after a specific duration. Some of the
popular magazines like Scientific American and New Scientist make
available a part of their material for free download over the Internet.
There are two free web-based encyclopedias, www.nupedia.com and
www.wikipedia.com.

The only way to counter the threat of IPR, and stop exploitation through
knowledge, is to make our knowledge freely available for anyone to use.
But for that, we have to forego the benefits that exploitation through
IPR could bring us. After all, our society has survived with this kind
of freedom for centuries and even today there are many who make a living
out of Ayurvea. IPR does protect the intellectual heritage of societies,
so that no one can patent any Ayurvedic medicine. Let us put out all
knowledge related to Ayurveda on the Web. Let those who want to make the
medicines themselves do so. Let those who want to make and sell them do
so. Let Ayurveda flourish, and IPR perish.