TPP Versus Free-Software Licensing
Seems like the “CPTPP” aka “TPP-11” (TPP minus the USA) may not be entirely free of objectionable provisions. A submission to the Australian ratification process <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180615/09090440050/open-source-industry-australia-says-zombie-tpp-could-destroy-free-software-licensing.shtml> has pointed out the following problematic clause: No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory. As you may know, such an access requirement is an integral part of copyleft licences like the GPL. What this clause seems to be saying is that such a requirement is unenforceable under the TPP.
From my layman's reading of it, requiring the transfer or access to the
This looks to me like the sort of apparently insignificant measure the intellectual property brigade have sneaked into an obscure place hoping nobody would notice until it is too late. source code would not only be unenforceable, but illegal.
From my incomplete research only a few of the worst measures have been removed or put on hold hoping for the USA to rejoin. A few more have been mitigated to a greater or lesser extent, but almost all of the agreement is intact, including the ISDS.
Rod On Tue, 19 Jun 2018 at 15:14, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote:
Seems like the “CPTPP” aka “TPP-11” (TPP minus the USA) may not be entirely free of objectionable provisions. A submission to the Australian ratification process < https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180615/09090440050/open-source-industry-...
has pointed out the following problematic clause:
No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory.
As you may know, such an access requirement is an integral part of copyleft licences like the GPL. What this clause seems to be saying is that such a requirement is unenforceable under the TPP. _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: https://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug
On Tue, 19 Jun 2018 16:25:26 +1200, Roderick Aldridge wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2018 at 15:14, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180615/09090440050/open-source-industry-...
This looks to me like the sort of apparently insignificant measure the intellectual property brigade have sneaked into an obscure place hoping nobody would notice until it is too late.
To be fair, a commenter has mentioned that, elsewhere in the document, “Party” is defined as a signatory country. So this is not requiring that everybody drop such conditions from their software licences. Also, thinking a bit more about it:
No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory.
It specifically talks about requiring source code of “software owned by a person of another Party”, i.e. not the side receiving or using the software. So all it’s doing is prohibiting the overriding of the licensing terms on which the software is being offered. Which actually seems quite legitimate. Maybe Glyn Moody has jumped the gun on this one, for a change. As have I, for my faith in him...
I hope you are right in your interpretation. Nobody can get everything right all the time. Rod On Tue, 19 Jun 2018 at 16:43, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2018 16:25:26 +1200, Roderick Aldridge wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2018 at 15:14, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180615/09090440050/open-source-industry-...
This looks to me like the sort of apparently insignificant measure the intellectual property brigade have sneaked into an obscure place hoping nobody would notice until it is too late.
To be fair, a commenter has mentioned that, elsewhere in the document, “Party” is defined as a signatory country. So this is not requiring that everybody drop such conditions from their software licences.
Also, thinking a bit more about it:
No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory.
It specifically talks about requiring source code of “software owned by a person of another Party”, i.e. not the side receiving or using the software.
So all it’s doing is prohibiting the overriding of the licensing terms on which the software is being offered. Which actually seems quite legitimate.
Maybe Glyn Moody has jumped the gun on this one, for a change. As have I, for my faith in him... _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: https://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug
On Tue, 19 Jun 2018 18:42:17 +1200, Roderick Aldridge wrote:
I hope you are right in your interpretation.
OK, I can see where an issue could arise. If you distribute a “derivative work”[1] of something with a copyleft licence, then you must offer the full source code, including the bits that you did. If you don’t want to do that, then this clause could indeed give you a loophole. You would still have to distribute the unmodified original sources (since you are not the owner of those), but no more. [1] This is one of those legal concepts which is trickier than you or I can imagine.
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Roderick Aldridge