[Am-info] NEW NAME, SAME SMELL

[Fred A. Miller]

NEW NAME, SAME SMELL

Posted April 5, 2002 01:01 PM  Pacific Time


A FEW MONTHS back, I mentioned a bill that could
greatly impact the world of open source: the proposed
Security Systems Standards and Certification Act
(SSSCA). The SSSCA has now been retagged Consumer
Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act
(CBDTPA) and is working its way through the Senate at
this writing.

As I mentioned before, the open-source world stood
against the SSSCA, as it would declare illegal any
"digital media device" -- including software -- that
does not enforce government mandated security systems
(see "
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/10/15/011015opsource.xml
"). Because any such implementation in an open-source
form could easily be circumvented by the device's
owner via editing of the source code, it seems
unlikely that any truly open-source implementation of
the bill would be deemed satisfactory. This could have
the net effect of making open-source operating systems
illegal in the United States. Of course, your PC and
your Walkman will fit into that category as well,
unless you can prove that they were manufactured
before the bill goes into effect.

But there is a secondary effect that this legislation
has on the open-source world: It strengthens the
resolve and the numbers of the open-source community.
How? Because the more rights any legislation takes
from consumers, the more the consumers look for alternatives.

Consider what happened to Virginia Beach, Va., During
the fall of 2000, the city was ordered to prove that
it was not pirating software. The order did not come
from a judge, it came from a vendor: Microsoft. While
scrambling to prove the city's innocence, city staff
members discovered that they did not retain the
paperwork documenting the legal origins of some of the
software in use. As a result, the city shelled out a
reported $129,000 in licensing fees for software it
had already purchased. Published reports estimated the
total cost of the exercise at $200,000.

"Innocent until proven guilty" is clearly pass=E9 in the
new IT realm. The assumption now is that the user is a
criminal. The list of customer duties in licenses
grows longer and longer, while the list of vendor
responsibilities seems to dwindle. It is getting more
difficult to tell whether the vendor merely owns the
software or if it actually owns the customer, too.

This is precisely why the new tendency in the industry
is bolstering consumer affinity toward open source.
For this group of folks, open source is not about
seeing source code or even reducing costs. It is about
recovering what was lost: basic dignity and freedom.
It is also about restoring simple control over one's
activities.

Open source does not force companies to perform
expensive audits, nor does it seek to make CD players
illegal. Open source restricts the power of software
producers not unlike the way the rule of law restricts
the power of political leaders. Political rulers
without absolute power have to work harder to
accomplish their goals, but those under their
influence are all better off for that fact.

Contact Russell at
pavlicek@linuxprofessionalsolutions.com or via the
InfoWorld Open Source forum at
http://www.infoworld.com/os .

--=20
Fred A. Miller
Systems Administrator
Cornell Univ. Press Services
fm@cupserv.org, www.cupserv.org
--- SuSE Linux v7.3 Pro---