Hello, I just got this at newforge - entire text copy pasted (apologies for that) It would be helpful if you can fwd this to your American friends, who in turn can write to these Congressmen. -regards- Sayamindu PS: Sayan, could you post an article on this at www.peacefualction.org, I am not being able to access the administrative interface =========Begin Message================ Wednesday October 23, 2002 - [ 12:47 PM GMT ] Print this Article Topic - Government An anonymous reader writes: "Leaders of the New Democrat Coalition attempt to outlaw GPL. A call to sign off on explicit rejection of "licenses that would prevent or discourage commercial adoption of promising cyber security technologies developed through federal R & D." has been issued by Adam Smith, Congressman for the Ninth District in the State of Washington. It's already signed off on by Rep. Tom Davis(R-Va), Chairman of Government Reform Subcomittee on Technology, and Rep. Jim Turner (D-TX) Ranking Member of the same committee, with the backing of Rep. Jim Davis (D-FL), and Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI). It's a note to fellow New Democrats under the guise of protecting commercial interest's right to make money from the fruits of federal R & D, and to sign off on an attached letter to Richard A. Clarke, Chair of the President's Critical Infrastructure. They are attempting to convince Clarke, Chair of the President's that licensing terms such as "those in the GNU or GPL" are restrictive, preclude innovation, improvement, adoption and establishment of commercial IP rights. Let's take a look at the highlights: 1) They use the Internet, by virtue of TCP/IP, as "proof" of their thesis. 2) They state that you cannot improve OR adopt OR commercialize GPL software. 3) They state that you cannot integrate GPL'd software with proprietery software. 4) They say you should keep publicly funded code away from the public sector, so that proprietary interests can make money from the work. 5) They equate a lack of understanding of the GPL with valid reasoning against it. In essence, that non-proprietary interests should not be allowed to use, adopt, improve, or make money from the work. That taxpayers should pay for it twice. And that nobody should be able to stop commercial entities from taking publicly funded code, they will then close off. Write or fax each of the Congressmen mentioned as supporting this, and let them know they have been given bad information and that categorically anti-opensource and anti-GPL stance will be reflected at voting time: Rep. Jim Davis 424 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-3376 Fax: (202) 225-5652 Webmail: http://www.house.gov/jimdavis/message.html Rep. Tom Davis 306 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515-4611 Phone: (202) 225-1492 Fax: (202) 225-3071 Rep. Ron Kind 1713 Longworth HOB Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: 202.225.5506 Fax: 202.225.5739 Rep. Adam Smith 116 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: 202-225-8901 Fax: 202-225-5893 E-Mail: http://www.house.gov/adamsmith/contact/contact.htm l Rep. Jim Turner 208 Cannon HOB Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-2401 Fax: (202) 225-5955 For those without e-mail listed, email them at: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ Here's the note to the New Democrats from Smith, Kind and J. Davis: Support Innovation in Cybersecurity -- Sign The Attached Dear Colleague Deadline: Friday, October 18th Dear New Democrat Colleague: Attached is a letter that is being sent to Dick Clarke, the Chair of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. As he shapes the "National Strategy"on cybersecurity, it is important to affirm that government R&D should be made available under intellectual property licenses that allow for further development and commercialization of that work. Licenses such as the General Public License (GPL) are problematic and threaten to undermine innovation and security. I urge you to sign this letter. As you know, the basis of the Internet - the TCP/IP protocol - is a result of federal R&D efforts at DARPA. The advancement and commercialization of this research provided significant economic growth as well as gains in productivity and efficiency. Public-private partnerships have been hallmarks of technological innovation and government has played a positive role in fostering innovation by allowing the private sector to develop commercial products from the results of publicly funded research. As such it is important that the National Strategy reject any licenses that would prevent or discourage commercial adoption of promising cybersecurity technologies developed through federal R&D. The terms of restrictive license's - such as those in the GNU or GPL - prevent companies from adopting, improving, commercializing and deriving profits from the software by precluding companies from establishing commercial IP rights in any subsequent code. Thus, if government R&D creates a security innovation under a restrictive license, a commercial vendor will not integrate that code into its software. So long as government research is not released under licensing terms that restrict commercialization, publicly funded research provides an important resource for the software industry. New Democrats have long supported public-private partnerships -- it's important that any licenses do not compromise a company's intellectual property rights in their own technology. I encourage you to sign the attached letter to Mr. Clarke. If you have any questions, please contact Mike Mullen (Rep. Jim Turner; 5-2401) or John Mulligan (Rep. Adam Smith; 5-8901). Thank you. Sincerely, Adam Smith Member of Congress Ron Kind Member of Congress Jim Davis Member of Congress Text of attached letter to Mr. Clarke Congress of the United States Washington DC 20515 October 8, 2002 Honorable Richard A. Clarke Chair, President's Critical Infrastructure Board The White House Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. Clarke: We are writing to submit our views on the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace that you circulated for comment on September 18, 2002. We believe the National Strategy should explicitly recognize that overall cyber security will improve if federally funded research and development is made available to Americans under intellectual property licenses that allow for further development and commercialization of that work product. This is a long-standing federal principle that should be explicitly stated in the National Strategy. The leading example of this principle is DARPA's research in the 1970s that resulted in TCP/IP - the key set of communications standards that form the technical basis of today's Internet. These communications standards were made available under licensing terms allowing their integration into commercial software, which in turn enabled a wide range of companies to develop innovative communication and networkingservices. Taxpayers are still realizing a tremendous return on that federal investment through Internet driven productivity gains, economic growth, job creation, and individual empowerment that could not have been predicted by the federal, academic and private sector researchers who developed TCP/IP. However, none of these returns would have been possible unless the research was made available under licensing terms that allowed the private sector to commercialize TCP/IP. Nor would the government and industry have enjoyed the fruits of this economic activity-- fruits that have funded additional research and development-- unless it had been made available for commercialization. It would be very unfortunate - indeed, couterproductive and contrary to the public-private partnership that is at the core of the national cyber security strategy - if companies were reluctant to adopt promising security technologies produced by federal research for fear that doing so may compromise their intellectual property rights in their own technology. For these reasons, it is essential that the National Strategy affirm federal tradition by explicitly rejecting licenses that would prevent or discourage commercial adoption of promising cyber security technologies developed through federal R&D. We commend your hard work on an issue of pressing importance, appreciate the opportunity to participate in this process, and trust you'll consider our views when you issue the final version of your report. Sincerely, (signed) Tom Davis (signed) Jim Turner Ranking Member, Reform Subcommittee on Technology NOTE: Their letter is addressed to Mr. Clarke who has *not* expressed support of this initiative."