[DRAFT #4] Free, Open Source Software Protections Act

[Clever Homo Sapiens]

OOC: This is a redrafting of my previous proposal, Protecting Free, Open Source Software Use, based on feedback that came while the proposal was at vote. As always, all feedback is welcome.

OOC: This is draft #4. Changes from draft #3 include the rephrasing of the last regulatory clause to shift its focus away from allowing member nations to ban individual pieces of FOSS to punishing those who use it in violation of international law, removing the ability of members to maintain current restrictions on FOSS by declaring individual pieces of FOSS illegal.

CURRENT DRAFT (#4):

The General Assembly,

Defining Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) as unproprietary software which anyone is free to use, copy, study, and change in any way, except for purposes illegal under (inter)national law,

Recognizing that many integral components of everyday life, including, but not limited to, digital stores of information and various forms of telecommunications, are at least partially dependent on FOSS,

Acknowledging that without FOSS, many of the above constituents of modern life may never have come about,

Concerned that such an acknowledgment does not go nearly far enough to encourage and repay developers and other supporters of FOSS, protect their ability to freely contribute to FOSS, or protect the ability of others to use and otherwise perform actions with/to FOSS,

Hereby:

1. Prohibits member nations from having or enforcing laws which criminalize or place other unreasonable restrictions, de jure or de facto, (on) FOSS or related activities as a whole,
   
   
2. Requires member nations with copyrights to allow FOSS copyright holders to license without restrictions the use, distribution, modification, etc. of their FOSS to all individuals and entities or release their FOSS into the public domain, and all member nations to recognize the right of individuals to, for purposes that do not violate remaining (inter)national law:
   
   1. access any and all FOSS,
   2. run FOSS as they wish, on computer systems where they are permitted to,
   3. study and modify FOSS,
   4. distribute original and modified copies of FOSS, and
   5. create FOSS, and
3. Affirms the right of member nations to punish individuals and entities for utilizing FOSS to commit or facilitate activities illegal under remaining (inter)national law.

[Clever Homo Sapiens]

Previous Drafts:

Title: Free, Open Source Software Protections Act
Category: Civil Rights
Strength: Mild


The General Assembly,

Defining Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) as unproprietary software which anyone is free to use, copy, study, and change in any way, except for purposes illegal under (inter)national law,

Recognizing that many integral components of everyday life, including, but not limited to, digital stores of information and various forms of telecommunications, are at least partially dependent on FOSS,

Acknowledging that without FOSS, many of the above constituents of modern life may never have come about,

Concerned that such an acknowledgment does not go nearly far enough to encourage and repay developers and other supporters of FOSS, protect their ability to freely contribute to FOSS, or protect the ability of others to use and otherwise perform actions with/to FOSS,

Hereby:

1. Requires that all member nations recognize and protect the right of individuals to, except for purposes illegal under (inter)national law:
   
   1. access any and all FOSS,
   2. run FOSS as they wish, on computer systems where they are permitted to,
   3. study and modify FOSS,
   4. distribute original and modified copies of FOSS, and
   5. create FOSS,
2. Affirms the right of member nations to ban or otherwise restrict instances of the above activities, or individual pieces of FOSS, if they promote or enable criminal acts, and
   
   
3. Clarifies that, despite the aforementioned right, member nations may not criminalize or place other unreasonable regulations on FOSS and those involved with it as a whole.

Title: Free, Open Source Software Protections Act
Category: Civil Rights
Strength: Mild


The General Assembly,

Defining Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) as unproprietary software which anyone is free to use, copy, study, and change in any way, except for purposes illegal under (inter)national law,

Recognizing that many integral components of everyday life, including, but not limited to, digital stores of information and various forms of telecommunications, are at least partially dependent on FOSS,

Acknowledging that without FOSS, many of the above constituents of modern life may never have come about,

Concerned that such an acknowledgment does not go nearly far enough to encourage and repay developers and other supporters of FOSS, protect their ability to freely contribute to FOSS, or protect the ability of others to use and otherwise perform actions with/to FOSS,

Hereby:

1. Prohibits member nations from having or enforcing laws which criminalize or place other unreasonable restrictions, de jure or de facto, (on) FOSS or related activities as a whole,
   
   
2. Requires member nations recognize and protect the right of individuals to, for purposes that do not violate remaining (inter)national law:
   
   1. access any and all FOSS,
   2. run FOSS as they wish, on computer systems where they are permitted to,
   3. study and modify FOSS,
   4. distribute original and modified copies of FOSS, and
   5. create FOSS, and
3. Affirms the right of member nations to ban or otherwise restrict instances of the above activities, or individual pieces of FOSS, if they promote or enable acts illegal under remaining (inter)national law.

[Clever Homo Sapiens]

"Well, our proposal got defeated. Thankfully, bringing it to vote brought out a good amount of quality feedback we utilized to create this redrafting. We think you'll find that it addresses most expressed concerns."

[Bananaistan]

CURRENT DRAFT (#1):
Title: Free, Open Source Software Protections Act
Category: Civil Rights
Strength: Mild


The General Assembly,

Defining Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) as unproprietary software which anyone is free to use, copy, study, and change in any way, except for purposes illegal under (inter)national law,

Recognizing that many integral components of everyday life, including, but not limited to, digital stores of information and various forms of telecommunications, are at least partially dependent on FOSS,

Acknowledging that without FOSS, many of the above constituents of modern life may never have come about,

Concerned that such an acknowledgment does not go nearly far enough to encourage and repay developers and other supporters of FOSS, protect their ability to freely contribute to FOSS, or protect the ability of others to use and otherwise perform actions with/to FOSS,

Hereby:

1. Requires that all member nations recognize and protect the right of individuals to, except for purposes illegal under (inter)national law:
   
   1. access any and all FOSS,
   2. run FOSS as they wish, on computer systems where they are permitted to,
   3. study and modify FOSS,
   4. distribute original and modified copies of FOSS, and
   5. create FOSS,
2. Affirms the right of member nations to ban or otherwise restrict instances of the above activities, or individual pieces of FOSS, if they promote or enable criminal acts, and
   
   
3. Clarifies that, despite the aforementioned right, member nations may not criminalize or place other unreasonable regulations on FOSS and those involved with it as a whole.

"This proposal does nothing. It tells member states to permits stuff only if they don't want to ban it. This is the current situation in place. It seems a waste of time and effort to basically member states to carry on as they are."

[Clever Homo Sapiens]

"This proposal does nothing. It tells member states to permits stuff only if they don't want to ban it. This is the current situation in place. It seems a waste of time and effort to basically member states to carry on as they are."

"That was a side effect of us trying to address concerns about sovereignty over criminal law. which seemed to be the biggest concerns with our previous proposal. However, we believe that issue is addressed by the addition of a regulatory clause which makes it clearer that member states cannot criminalize or place other unreasonable restrictions on FOSS and related activities as a whole."

[WayNeacTia]

There is nothing here that is even worthwhile saving. The whole point of Free and Open Source Software, is just that. It is free and open source, free from regulation. This got it's ass kicked the first time. Perhaps you should have taken the hint....

[Simone Republic]

(OOC)

Free software as defined by the Free Software Foundation requires the use of a license, such as GPL, the Lesser GPL, Apache, etc. After all, GPL stands for the GNU "General Public License". The key here is licensing. Unless there is clear governance of licensing, there isn't any basis for passing laws to protect open source software. This is regardless of whether it has a commercial or for-profit element or not.

(IC)

Since WA does not have clear copyright resolutions (having been repealed), there are no clear foundations for passing legislation on "free software" unless there are serious discussions on international copyright laws.

This post contains certain concepts developed from WALL's Discord and from PotatoFarmers but does not represent the views of either one.

[Bananaistan]

(OOC)

Free software as defined by the Free Software Foundation requires the use of a license, such as GPL, the Lesser GPL, Apache, etc. After all, GPL stands for the GNU "General Public License". The key here is licensing. Unless there is clear governance of licensing, there isn't any basis for passing laws to protect open source software. This is regardless of whether it has a commercial or for-profit element or not.

(IC)

Since WA does not have clear copyright resolutions (having been repealed), there are no clear foundations for passing legislation on "free software" unless there are serious discussions on international copyright laws.

This post contains certain concepts developed from WALL's Discord and from PotatoFarmers but does not represent the views of either one.

OOC: See GAR#232 and, arguably, software could fall under the "process" part of the definition of invention in GAR#394.

[Simone Republic]

OOC: See GAR#232 and, arguably, software could fall under the "process" part of the definition of invention in GAR#394.

OOC:

#232 is foreign copyright but it does not seem to do anything to help domestic copyright and licensing to cover something as big as GPL (say)

[Clever Homo Sapiens]

Free software as defined by the Free Software Foundation requires the use of a license, such as GPL, the Lesser GPL, Apache, etc. After all, GPL stands for the GNU "General Public License". The key here is licensing. Unless there is clear governance of licensing, there isn't any basis for passing laws to protect open source software. This is regardless of whether it has a commercial or for-profit element or not.

"The most recent draft includes a provision related to licensing applicable to nations with copyright."

[Anne of Cleves in TNP]

“I find that this is not a perfect topic for legislation because of its free nature, thus contradicting the idea of legislation. Furthermore, this is absolutely not an international issue. In high-tech nations, the WA should not be responsible for opening free software to the populace, it’s the businesses and technology companies who should be responsible for this task. Sure, you can argue that this is slightly associated with copyright, and that the WA is the organization for dealing with rights and freedoms issues. But the moment that you legislate on said issues regarding technology, then things are out of the WA’s control.”
-Ms. Charlotte Schafer, WA Ambassador for the Clevesian Empire

[Dicq]

I want to propose section 3 to be omitted entirely.

Allowing member nations to restrict FOSS software based on (inter)national law means that this proposal provides no protections for free software at all. If this proposal passes with section 3 in tact member nations will still be able to restrict FOSS software just as they are now, simply by declaring specific software illegal.

In Dicq we believe that all software is just a tool, that can be used for good and evil. We believe no type of software should be illegal at all, and that misuse of software should punish the user, not the creator(or copyright holder) of that software.

I wish this proposal would protect all FOSS software, and making WA member nations unable to consider any sort of FOSS software illegal.

[Clever Homo Sapiens]

Allowing member nations to restrict FOSS software based on (inter)national law means that this proposal provides no protections for free software at all. If this proposal passes with section 3 in tact member nations will still be able to restrict FOSS software just as they are now, simply by declaring specific software illegal.

"We revised section 3 to allow member nations to punish users for using FOSS for illegal purposes, but not declare or restrict individual pieces of FOSS."

[Clever Homo Sapiens]

OOC: Bump.

[Simone Republic]

Free software as defined by the Free Software Foundation requires the use of a license, such as GPL, the Lesser GPL, Apache, etc. After all, GPL stands for the GNU "General Public License". The key here is licensing. Unless there is clear governance of licensing, there isn't any basis for passing laws to protect open source software. This is regardless of whether it has a commercial or for-profit element or not.

"The most recent draft includes a provision related to licensing applicable to nations with copyright."

I think this is still chicken and egg. Unless you have a resolution that imposes copyright on software, you really can't impose a resolution on "free software", at least as I understand it. One way to potentially solve this is to require all WA members to recognize copyright in software, but then it becomes a question of why not re-impose a copyright resolution.