Naked Law

Model railway software points to open source licensing weakness

An argument over intellectual property rights in software that manages train sets has been reported on vnunet as exposing an "Achilles heel" in open source software.

US based proprietary software vendor KAM Industries has alleged that the JMRI (Java Model Railway Interface) available on SourceForge distributed via an open source licensing model infringes patent rights owned by KAM.  KAM have reportedly invoiced Robert Jacobson, who runs the JMRI project $203,000 based upon $29 per download.  Jacobson has not rolled over and has fought back with a lawsuit claiming that the patent is invalid and that KAM has been involved in various illegal acts.

This dispute highlights one of the risks faced by those developing and using open source software.  Although there are many benefits in open source software, it is not immune from claims that someone else owns intellectual property in the software.  There is of course the perception that since the software is normally distributed free of charge and as open source is generally believed to be for the common good, owners of prior intellectual property rights will not be overly concerned by open source competition.  Indeed, the likes of Nokia, IBM and Sun Microsystems have declared to varying degrees that they will not use their patents against open source software.  Also, there is ongoing discussion about how the GPL open source licence model can be improved to deal with possible patent infringment prior to the launch of GPL version 3.  However, where prior rights, such as patents and copyright exist, there will be ongoing risks of infringment, both for the developer/distributor of the software and the end-user.  Simply going down the open source model will not remove this risk altogether.

OECD Anti-Spam Toolkit Launched

The OECD has published an anti-spam toolkit to help governments coordinate the global scourge of spam.  There is an international patchwork of laws of varying effectiveness across the globe dealing with spam, but the global nature of cyberspace requires a global approach to enforcement.  The OECD has provided its “Recommendation on Cross-Border Co-operation in the Enforcement of Laws against Spam”, that prompts governments to "ensure that their laws enable enforcement authorities to share information with other countries and do so more quickly and effectively".  There are also recommendations that enforcement is beefed up and that people are better educated on the risks associated with spam and how to deal with them.

The OECD's aims are admirable, but it is not looking to eradicate spam altogether, merely to deal with it.  As technology develops over time there will be more and more ways to produce spam. Over recent years, peer-to-peer and VOIP "spam" and the phenomenon of "splogging" have demonstrated this.  It is unfortunate that some form of self-regulation has not been sufficient to deal with the problem and increasing government intervention is inevitable in order to enusre that the Internet is preserved as "a global facility available to the public" (as defined at the World Summit on the Information Society - WSIS Declaration of Principles).

A gnother GNU

In January this year the Free Software Foundation issued a new version of their popular GNU GPL licence for open source software for the world to comment on. The FSF site now shows, using colour coding, where attention has been focussed to date, and most people appear to be interested in DRM - defined by FSF as "digital restrictions management".

There is plenty in the new licence for lawyers to get their teeth into, such as the clause heading "Not a contract", which may not be ideal wording for those seeking to enforce the GPL version 3 in a UK court. You can read the comments posted to date by clicking on any section, and can contribute your own.

In the meantime, open source usage in the UK continues to increase, with the Open Source Academy for local authorities being a recent addition to a number of organisations dedicated to encouraging take up of open source software by government, institutions and businesses.