Andres Guadamuz, a lecturer in law at the University of Edinburgh, recently noticed that the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has been lobbying US Trade Representative Ron Kirk to designate countries that have mandated the use of free software (specifically, Brazil, Indonesia and India) to be placed on the Special 301 Watch List. The IIPA is a private sector coalition of trade associations, including the Business Software Alliance, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); these names are familiar to digital freedom supporters as cartels hell-bent on using their power to suffocate internet freedoms and to change the course of humanity’s path towards information-based societies in the interest of their enormous profiteering.

The assertion that a country’s choice to use free software is equivalent to illegal piracy is an absurdity and a desperate response to the the free software revolution happening throughout the world. In the 498-page Special 301 report released by the IIPA, they attack Brazil’s policy of mandating the use of free software on page 183 as a reason to keep it on the watchlist:

“Government software procurement: The Brazilian Government should be encouraged to continue its efforts to implement effective software asset management practices in its public ministries and agencies, while avoiding mandates for procurement of software based on the model of development or the business model of the developer.”

On page 170, the IIPA clarifies its demands of the Brazilian government:

“Avoid legislation on the mandatory use of open source software by government agencies and government controlled companies.”

Then, the IIPA takes us to Indonesia. Starting on page 79, they attempt to form a coherent argument about how mandating a switch to open source software is somehow an act against US trade interests:

“[I]n March 2009, the Ministry of Administrative Reform (MenPAN) issued Circular Letter No. 1 of 2009 to all central and provincial government offices including State-owned enterprises, endorsing the use and adoption of open source software within government organizations. While the government issued this circular in part with the stated goal to ‘reduc[e] software copyright violation[s],’ in fact, by denying technology choice, the measure will create additional trade barriers and deny fair and equitable market access to software companies.”

Huh? It’s as if the IIPA forgot that plenty of US companies sell open source software — a fact that they probably “forgot” because no open source software company is paying them off. Why is this form of institutionalized bribery accepted? The IIPA goes on to demand that Indonesia rescind this order on page 80:

“IIPA requests that the government of Indonesia take the following actions, which would result in the most significant near term commercial benefits to the copyright industries: […] Rescind March 2009 MenPAN circular letter endorsing the use and adoption of open source software […]”

The IIPA’s war against the free software revolution then takes us to the Philippines on page 148:

“IIPA was concerned regarding reports of consideration of a Free Open Source Software bill which would require government offices to use open source software. Passage of that bill would deny technology choice regarding software usage and ultimately would stunt the growth of the IT industry in the Philippines.”

Thailand’s commitment to open source is attacked on page 353:

“Among other market access restrictions to be addressed, reverse proposed policy mandating use of open source software, and, e.g., requiring bundling of government funded computers and computers for schools with open source software; maintain neutral policies with respect to technology choice.”

Vietnam is instructed to avoid open source on page 396: “Cease government-endorsed open source preference policy which is limiting technology choice in Vietnam.”

And, Ecuador is also cited for dangerously choosing open source software on page 453: “Most of USTR’s concerns were directed at patent issues, but one major copyright problem highlighted involved a poorly drafted provision in the Education Law which appears to allow free software to educational institutions. Due to their concerns, USTR moved Ecuador back to the Watch List […]”

The IIPA Report makes a few things very clear. First, although this is already well-known, the software industry is scared to death of open source software and must resort to strong-arming as it’s only means of competing with it. Second, free software is spreading like wildfire all over the world as the smart defense against the proprietary software industry. And, finally, we can see why free software for taxpayers is not gaining traction in the United States, where industry lobby groups have a much easier time bribing decision-makers.

“The Brazil Portal marks a new stage in the communication from the State with society and the media,” declared the the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during the launch of the new version of the www.brasil.gov.br website, held last Wednesday, the 3rd, by the Secretary of Communication for the Presidency - Secom.

According to Secom, the Portal was envisioned and developed to break with the current models of digital communication from the government. The proposed environment is to offer personalized content to diverse public interests, to gather in one space more than 500 services of electronic government and to promote interactivity between users and the State. “The Portal is a permanent work-in-progress and, therefore, open to everyone’s opinion,” the Secretary of Secom, Franklin Martins, said.

The Secretary emphasized the innovative design of the Brazil Portal and the importance of multimedia content. For him, this is an experience that treats information as a whole in the digital environment.

The form of navigation in the website is matched up with the user’s preference, since the Portal offers the organization of information by profile or themes. Workers, students, entrepreneurs and journalists get targeted content and Secom already plans for the creation of new profiles.

For the international version, the division is by focus of interest: investors, tourists and students. “We are radicalizing the experience of electronic government in Brazil,” said the Minister of Planning, Budgets and Management, Paulo Bernando.

Technology: The Brazil Portal is developed with Plone 3.1.7 and runs on Zope Application Server 2.10.6, programmed in Python 2.4.4. “The use of free platforms is the direction of the federal government. And the choice of the tools for the construction of the Portal would not be different. So, we chose Zope/Plone,” explained Silvia Sardinha, Director of the Internet and Events for Secom.

Cintia Cinquini, from the Presidency’s Department of Technology, said that Plone is a widely-used platform in the government to add distinctive features, such as usability (a multiuser platform with easy management), accessibility (standardized resources) and security.

The new Portal is hosted on servers at Serpro and counts on the support and experience of the company in the use of this software.

Part of their justification reads: “Our need to follow those laws supersedes any wishes we might have to make our community as inclusive as possible. The possible penalties for violating these restrictions include fines and imprisonment. Other hosting companies based in the US have similar legal and technical restrictions in place.”

Although, many users have posted comments criticizing SourceForge’s decision. Some, such as afsharm, who has contributed to projects hosted on SourceForge and can no longer access his work now: “I am an Iranian (an innocent one) and I am not responsible for what ever my government is doing. As nawwark mentioned I’ve sometimes have contributions in SF.NET projects, so why you are denying me from my own works? It’s against freedom and against FOSS.”

Others, like yemeth, could not understand how a project based in another country can be considered a US product: “I seriously can’t understand this. I’m Spanish, and my technology isn’t northamerican. It has nothing to do with the United States except that is hosted here. I can’t understand why said government has anything to say about my will to share my code with EVERYONE. I have no personal embargo against Cuba, nor does my country.”

And there were those, like pmarkiewicz, who pointed out the easier solution: “Folks, if you visit http://www.torproject.org and install tor, then SourceForge can not determine your country of origin. If you happen to traverse through an exit node that is not in an ‘axis of evil’ country, then there is no reason you would be denied that code. Senator Clinton even endorsed efforts to provide these tools to dissenters.”

The comment makes reference to Secretary of State Clinton’s request to Twitter to postpone a planned maintenance shutdown during the election protests in Iran, so that Iranian users could access and use the website (seemingly putting Twitter at legal risk, following the logic used by SourceForge). At the time, she said: “And it is the case that one of the means of expression, the use of Twitter is a very important one, not only to the Iranian people but now increasingly to people around the world, and most particularly to young people.”

Two weeks later, SourceForge posted another entry on their blog, announcing a change in their decision. Now, they have removed the block and added a feature that allows project owners to ban access to the sanctioned countries:

Beginning now, every project admin can click on Develop -> Project Admin -> Project Settings to find a new section called Export Control. By default, we’ve ticked the more restrictive setting. If you conclude that your project is *not* subject to export regulations, or any other related prohibitions, you may now tick the other check mark and click Update. After that, all users will be able to download your project files as they did before last month’s change.

While this was a positive change in the eyes of some, there are still many unanswered questions from SF users, especially those from outside of the US. They don’t understand the US laws and are not sure if they will be in some kind of trouble by choosing to freely distribute their software.

To be fair, SourceForge.net is not the only web service to block users from the sanctioned countries. NXS News reported on this before when it was noticed that Google was blocking access to users based on the country they were surfing from. The consensus being floated around the FOSS community is to start choosing hosts outside the US for their projects, where restrictions on internet use are not so strict. A good option would be Launchpad.net in the UK, used by MySQL and Ubuntu. Either way, the US Government’s arguments about standing up for freedom (remember, “they hate us for our freedom”) is certainly diluted by their own efforts to restrict the individual freedom of people to freely use the internet, regardless of where in the world they happen to be when using it.

After all, this is San Francisco! We have more free software user groups than many small countries!

Well, finally, San Francisco has taken a small step towards our goal of a free software government. It isn’t exactly what we wanted … but it sure does come close.

On January 21, San Francisco adopted a policy that “mandates that city agencies always consider open source options when buying new software.” Ok … there’s not much real enforcement there. But San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom went on the record with: “[T]his is just the beginning. The potential is there for millions of dollars [saved] in software licensing costs. That’s the reality.”

More importantly, for free software advocates, this presents higher ground from which we can continue arguing for a stronger policy in favor of free software.

And, this policy has come out of a larger push called the Open Gov Initiative for the City and County of San Francisco, which validates many of the values of free software.

So, even though the policy lacks teeth and might just be a way to get us to stop calling the city’s IT department and complaining, it is, at least, a step in the right direction. Keep watching this space for more information on a stronger, coordinated effort to push for policies and/or legislation that contains real enforcement. If you are a resident of San Francisco and you’re interested in helping out, please get in touch!

A recent webinar by Evans Data has confirmed through research what we have known through experience. In a presentation entitled “Contrasting Software Development Trends Between the Emerging Markets and the Rest of the World,” Evans Data CEO John Andrews released their findings that 74% of developers in emerging markets use free software, where “use” is defined as “personal use or corporate use, and could include both developer tools and desktop or server applications.” That’s 11% higher than the rest of the world — and it’s a meaningful 11%. While software development jobs are growing worldwide, they are growing three times faster in emerging markets such as Latin America. The presentation is further analyzed in this post on IT World.

Now, Fiat is taking a cue from the trend in Brazilian society towards open knowledge and free software by announcing the debut of an open source vehicle, released with a Creative Commons license.

The Fiat FC III Mio is being designed with input from anyone and everyone, coordinated at the Fiat Mio website. The car will debut soon at the 2010 São Paulo International Auto Show.

Time is running out if you want to help design the car! We take this as further evidence of the far-reaching influence of free software ideas on Brazilian culture. For more information, see this article in Wired.

Lula spoke about the broader goals of free software to break down barriers in an increasingly information-based society. These goals are being pursued by using both the programs and values of free software. He continued: “We are discussing access to development. Our meeting is important for us to strengthen the necessary collaboration to become a factor in social inclusion. I feared that the social relationship would remain prejudiced but what I saw was children sitting around, talking amongst themselves, working on the computer, researching and teaching each other. A total interaction.”

How can these values be imported into the United States?

In February 2009, at Havana, Cuba, was launched the project to internationalize the Free Software Portal, an initiative to help other countries to implement free software in their government adopting the Brazilian model. Cuba was the first one to join it, and they will choose one of the free softwares in the portal to be translated to Spanish and used in different sectors of the Cuban society.

After that other governments has shown desire to join the project such like Paraguay, Trinidad e Tobago, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia. Now Brazil started to visit countries around Latin America to present the Public Software Portal. Uruguay was the first one to be visited, the goal with these meetings is to present the experience of the Public Software in Brazil.

The internationalization process is an attempt to share the solutions with other countries and also to involve them on the development of those free softwares communities. The process will involve the translation of the solutions as well as the creation of a special portal translated to other languages which will host communities of free softwares from other countries.

The First Public Software Meeting will happen this year on Octuber during the Latinoware Conference at Foz do Iguaçu, Paraná. It will be historic and will greatly enhance the process of adoption of free software by Latin America governments.