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Only in America? Copyright Law Key to Global Free Software Model notes:
The existence of legal systems without robust enforcement of copyright law, in countries where software development is a highly robust enterprise, is a serious threat to the free software model. Because: :
The bottom line is that free software lives and dies by the sword of copyright law -- and the sword outside the U.S. and Europe is not very sharp. Enforcing free software licenses in the U.S. is hard enough. . . . So, who will enforce the GPL in India? Or in China? Or in Russia? In lieu of enforcement, do we really expect voluntary compliance in nations where copyright law is a nod and a wink? The author closes on what seems intended as an optimistic note: Perhaps the resuilt will be total destruction of all IP governing software.
Although copyleft is an elegant paradigm, it will unravel with neither voluntary compliance nor enforcement to effectuate it. So we must face reality: Copyleft may never be a useful paradigm in most of our world. Moreover, if code can be laundered in other countries, the free software paradigm in the U.S. may ultimately break down. Perhaps this is not necessarily a prophecy of doom, though.
Ultimately, this may be a question of whether the open source model -- as opposed to the free software model -- works. For what is open source software other than free software without enforcement? Perhaps our copyright-scofflaw brothers in Asia will show us another path -- freedom as in freely available, freedom as in free of copyright law
posted by James DeLong @ 11:45 AM | Software
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