But you’re supposed to give us money
“We will protect our revenue stream at any cost.” Including, it appears, the cost of one’s credibility. Get a whiff of this:
The Indonesian government’s policy… simply weakens the software industry and undermines its long-term competitiveness by creating an artificial preference for companies offering open source software and related services, even as it denies many legitimate companies access to the government market.
Rather than fostering a system that will allow users to benefit from the best solution available in the market, irrespective of the development model, it encourages a mindset that does not give due consideration to the value to intellectual creations.
As such, it fails to build respect for intellectual property rights and also limits the ability of government or public-sector customers (e.g., State-owned enterprise) to choose the best solutions.
That’s the International Intellectual Property Association, recommending sanctions against Indonesia because Indonesia, to keep costs down, is encouraging the use of open-source software, rather than fork over cash to IIPA members. “Fails to build respect” apparently translates to “fails to pay tribute.”
And of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg:
It turns out that the [IIPA], an umbrella group for organisations including the MPAA and RIAA, has requested with the US Trade Representative to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India for its “Special 301 watchlist” because they use open source software.
What’s Special 301? It’s a report that examines the “adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights” around the planet — effectively the list of countries that the US government considers enemies of capitalism. It often gets wheeled out as a form of trading pressure — often around pharmaceuticals and counterfeited goods — to try and force governments to change their behaviours.
There is nothing particularly unusual about this: it’s standard-issue, Econ 101-level rent-seeking, justified by the usual Lofty Motives. But I can’t bring myself to shed any tears over the deleterious effect on Steve Ballmer’s lunch money wrought by some Jakarta bureaucrat installing a Linux distro.
(Via Fark.)
