Re: Software as a public service

Alan Hudson wrote:

> I'm not sure it will accomplish what you want.  The right to view 
> software does not give you a license to reuse the code.  Ie it might 
> help with making file-formats compatible, but I doubt it would let you 
> re-use the code.  Useful, but not as useful as a law that says 
> publically funded code is licensed under blah...  Or do you think the 
> FOI Act could be used to give access to reuse?


In Canada an Access to Information request costs $5, and it may be 
similar in the USA.

When the material being requested isn't software, the right to republish 
   it verbatim is assumed.  What the license is was not asked, but I 
relied on this right to republish just like any other journalist when I 
did my ATiP for information relating to the software patent scandal in 
Canada (Our patent office expanding patentability to software without 
even a court case as happened in the USA).

The results are here for anyone interested:
http://www.flora.ca/A-2004-00246/

To repeat: that was $5 to get a CD with many TIFF files on it which I 
converted to PDF and which a friend is doing an OCR to HTML.  The 
results for software will likely be similar: program listings that are 
faxed to an Information Officer who then makes it available to the citizen.

If you want to find out what the license is if the result of such an act 
is a program listing which you can OCR and compile, then ask.  Include a 
demand of an answer to that question as part of the ATiP request.


It is funny: when it is software we don't hesitate to run test cases, 
but when it is policy we seem paralyzed.  If you want to know what the 
results of an ATiP request is for software, then run a test case.  The 
worst case is that your test case may fail and you'll then have a 
core-dump to take to your government representative.

-- 
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/blog/2 (My BLOG)
  Sign the Petition Users' Rights! http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/
  To protect Internet age creativity we must reform WIPO, not copyright!