"We are aware, and began campaign correspondence with other delegations shortly before requesting approvals here."
Jedinsto wrote:Unconvinced this is necessary
"As noted in our correspondence with other delegations, open source software forms a significant portion of the technological backbone of corporations, governments, and other organizations, running their servers among other infrastructure. Additionally, due to the very nature of this software, it is difficult for FOSS projects to attract developers, constituting a labor shortage of sorts in this important sector, with projects often resting on a few overworked individuals. Imagine the consequences if just one developer of a particularly important or used piece of FOSS died or quit of frustration! This is a tentative first step towards ensuring this labor shortage is addressed by protecting individuals' rights to develop and contribute towards FOSS and ensure that projects do not metaphorically or literally go down in flames due to mysterious circumstances. Besides, this is an area that the WA has not historically seen legislation in, which presents an opportunity to further civil rights relevant to this technological era in many nations."
Bananaistan wrote:"The people of Bananaistan wholeheartedly support this proposal and rejoice at the blow this strikes at hyper-individualist, exploitative global capitalism."
"We appreciate their support, and expect your delegation to do the same."
Araraukar wrote:OOC: Exactly how is a "right to program" a civil right? This reads more like "right to profit from one's work" which sounds more like pro-trade (free trade). Exactly what civil rights does this advance significantly?
"As currently written, it protects the right of individuals to develop and contribute to FOSS software. By the very nature of this kind of software, it would be difficult for one to profit from it. Again, this is an area the WA has not traditionally legislated in, and this proposal would also help bring the WA up to speed with civil rights relevant to this technological era in most nations."
And does definition (1.b.) mean that the proposal tries to ban prevention of "digital terrorism", that is, you are not allowed to stop people from writing and distributing password crackers, computer viruses and bot programs as long as they use some open source program to create them?
Alternatively the requirement is only for developing the open source code itself, not doing anything with it, which narrows the effect down so far that I seriously question the strength of the proposal.
"In that case, we will add an exception to that definition for terrorism as defined by International law.
And doesn't recommendation #2 self-contradict the definition of FOSS? Copyrighted things are NOT free of costs and freely accessible and such, so the moment a developer of the code invokes their copyrights, their code no longer counts as FOSS.
"Not really. It is often helpful to have a legal framework specifically dedicated to FOSS and like media in order to preserve its freedom and openness. However, I see how this could be misconstrued, and will make specific reference to using copyright law in a way to help keep FOSS free and open source."
OOC: Shifted the conversation to IC to make it more engaging as debate picks up. And I would appreciate if all of this feedback came a little sooner!