[Fsf-friends] US State Congressman tries to ban the GPL
Sayamindu Dasgupta
unmadindu@Softhome.net
23 Oct 2002 20:55:54 +0530
Hello,
I just got this at newforge - entire text copy pasted (apologies for
that)
It would be helpful if you can fwd this to your American friends, who in
turn can write to these Congressmen.
-regards-
Sayamindu
PS: Sayan, could you post an article on this at www.peacefualction.org,
I am not being able to access the administrative interface
=========Begin Message================
Wednesday October 23, 2002 - [ 12:47 PM GMT ] Print this Article
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, couterproductive 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."