Open-Source Software: Bad, Evil and Un-American

“Red Hat? SUSE Linux? Apache? MySQL? These are bad, evil,
un-American entities. Apparently. They and the rest of those dirty
rotten open-source software scoundrels are responsible for a “tidal
wave of losses in U.S. jobs and competitiveness.”

“That’s the view of the International Intellectual Property
Alliance (IIPA), a group of trade bodies that includes such
notables as the Business Software Alliance, the Motion Picture
Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA). The IIPA recently submitted its
Orwellian-sounding “2010 Special 301 Report on Copyright Protection
& Enforcement,” an annual review of intellectual property
protection and market access practices in foreign countries, to the
U.S. Trade Representative. Ten countries make the “priority watch
list” of naughty boys this year (down from 13 last year), including
Indonesia.

“What has Indonesia done to make it onto the Special 301
Priority Watch list? Turns out it had the temerity to send out a
circular endorsing the use and adoption of open-source software
within government organizations, which it hoped would “result in
the use of legitimate open source and Free Open Source Software
(FOSS) and a reduction in overall costs of software.”

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