The World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva
has had a long and often heated debate over two particularly thorny
issues: open software and intellectual property
rights.
Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
Europe, said that what differentiates free software from open
source is the freedom it gives users to modify, distribute and use
the software in an unlimited way.
Open source is a term that even Microsoft is using when it talks
about opening its code for governments to view, he said, adding
that "Microsoft software is proprietary software".
Earlier language advocating the wide use of open-source software
has been toned down in the final draft because of demands by US and
European Union government delegates that commercial software
interests receive fair representation in the plan.
The language in the endorsed declaration of principles has gone
from outright "support" of open-source software to "promoting" an
"increased awareness" of the "different software models, including
proprietary, open source and free software," he said.
The fact that free software is listed in the final draft in
addition to open source is the result of intensive lobbying by
several groups, including FSF Europe.
Talks on IPR were a major battle, according to Greve. "I don't
know of any group that met more often and argued more intensively
than this group," he said. "The US delegation went so far as to
invite a group of motion pictures executives to attend a session
and argue their case."
To avoid any wording that would undermine existing international
IPR accords and efforts by big content holders, the US delegation
agreed to "let us squeeze in the word 'free' " in the paragraph on
software in return for "a very general statement on intellectual
property right protection", Greve said. He referred to the final
draft as "a very tender steak that has been beaten for a long
time".
"When it comes to software and IPR, I have to admit that we
haven't made a quantum leap," Greve said. "But we have taken steps
nevertheless in creating an awareness at a very high political
level of the need to make software and content more easily
available to poorer nations, and that's better than we
expected."
John Blau writes for IDG News Service