We had this debate in Milan. We had it in Brussels. We had it in Prague. To the extent people agree that innovation in software should be protected to reward innovators and encourage further innovation, what is the best approach? The historic approach of trade secrets? The well-established convention of copyright law? The newer approach of patents? Many very intelligent people disagree on this, and that is true here at our Digital Americas Buenos Aires event as well.

I've just heard Martin Carranza Torres (Abogado, Asesor de empresas, de la Camara de Empresas de Software y Servicios Informaticos) give a compelling presentation explaining the origins of all three approaches. He says creative thinking is needed (while leaving ideologies aside) in approaching long-term solutions. Trade secrets and/or copyright alone is insufficient, however, according to Martin, nor is some hybrid of copyright and patent. Patents can play a critical role in software protection, he said. This is as controversial in Argentina, it seems, as it is in Europe (or the U.S.). In fact, Antonio Mille, president of Del Instituto Latinoamericano de Alta Technologia, Informatica y Derecho, said he preferred copyright (but was questioned by another Martin, Martin Krause).

There is a great deal of scholarship on this debate, some of it generated by PFF fellows, so I won't attempt to address it all here. Whatever solution provides the most innovation and investment must be the right approach, however, and the Free Open Source Software (FOSS) movement would clearly not be a candidate for that blue ribbon. Like Jim and Tom, Martin agreed that there is room in a functioning market for open-source software, but saw less merit in the Free Software Foundation approach due to its ideological hostility to markets and IP rights.

While most of the more than 100 attendees here are young, they are all dressed professionally and seem exceedingly polite (just like every porteno I've met). No FOSS revolutionaries to be found. It would have been fun to see someone wearing a "Ningun Patentas de Software" T-shirt banging a drum and shouting quotes from Richard Stallman and Che Guevara, but it probably wouldn't have contributed to the debate here. Much more postive dialogue came from another speaker, Leonardo Paniceres, president of Metal Corp., who admired the creativity of FSF programmers and its contributions to code but didn't demonstrate hostility to IP protection.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 1:01 PM | Digital Americas

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