[A2k] Proposals for the section of the Paris Accord on Software (June 16, 2006)

[James Love]

This reflects comments to date.   Jamie

Proposals for the section of the Paris Accord on Software  (June 16,
2006)

1. Concentration of ownership and control of software operating
systems and applications presents risks and dangers to programmers
and users.

2.  Monopolies or cartel like ownership of PC operating systems and
office productivity applications harms users and programmers, and
must be addressed by governments, programmers and purchasers of
software.

3.  Programmers of software need access to certain interface data, in
order to design products that work with other products.

4. Some high quality software products, standards and protocols can
and will be produced without regard to ownership or control of
software code, or any expectation of remuneration or other pecuniary
reward from the sale or licensing of the code.  On the other hand,
some important software products are unlikely to be produced without
an expectation of economic rewards.

[5.  Consumers agree that infringement of software applications
undermines economic incentives for firms to employ programmers to
develop certain new products.  Programmers agree that excessive
prices for software programs contribute to infringement of software
copyrights.

Philippe comment on earlier formulation: I don't agree with the
present drafting of 5. I am not in favour of infringing software
copyright. In many cases, free software is the obvious solution to
avoid infringing on proprietary software copyright. However, there is
strictly no evidence that infringement of software copyrights by
(whom? missing word in your draft) has "deterred firms from employing
programmers to develop new products". In contrast, there is strong
evidence that monopoly positions of installed software providers
(created including by letting "illegal" copying develop to lock in
users) acts as an innovation deterrent within these companies,
inducing a predominantly rent-seeking behaviour and the search for
innnovation that protects oligopolistic business models (DRMs for
instance) instead of providing new useful functionality to users.
Patent and other legal or regulatory developments that provide
dominant players with weapons of massive deterrence or destruction of
course reinforce this trend (as shown be Bessen, Maskin and Hunt).]


6.  Commercial software products should not be designed to lock-in
users to particular vendors.

7.  Business models for software development should reward
programmers for making users better off, and not reward programmers
or software publishers for anticompetitive and anti-consumer practices.

8.  Open document formats are essential for the development of a
competitive and open software industry.

9.  Users and programmers should lobby large buyers of software to
demand open document formats, and other measures that promote
interoperability.

10.  Proprietary technologies that undermine the World Wide Web
should be discouraged.

11.  Experience has shown that the costs of extending patent
protection to software exceed the benefits.

12.  For any software functionality that is essential to creative,
expressive knowledge and innovation activities in today's or
tomorrow's information society, there should exists, as soon as
possible, at least one practical solution that is implemented as
FLOSS (free/libre/open source software), and whose usage does not
depend on proprietary software.

[Philippe comment:  The legal (11), standards and interoperability
(3, 9, 10), competition (1, 2, 6) and other points in your list can
be derived from this prerequisite. Most can not be credibly ensured
without (0) being fulfilled.  See also number 13, which Philippe
proposed]

13. Consumers and programmers support the legitimacy for governments
or other parties to support the creation of missing components of
essential FLOSS alterntatives, either directly (German policy) or
indirectly (research and development policy, other forms of
incentives, pro-active competition policy with corrective measures
based on irrevocable royalty-free non-IP constrained licenses).


---------------------------------
James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks."  Bill Walton