Bonum Certa Men Certa

Free Software Enables Developing and Developed Countries to Unshackle Themselves From Intellectual Monopolies

Flag of Ecuador



Summary: The heartwarming story of Ecuador, the political opposition to software patents in New Zealand, and areas where patents stomp on people's lives

Free software and intellectual monopolies are closely related subjects. We typically write about the latter only in our daily links though, because it is not the main focus of this Web site.



IP Watch has a decent new article about how "Free Software [Is] Used To Fight Piracy, Broaden Knowledge Access In Ecuador"

A joint project being launched by a regional non-profit group along with the Ecuador’s intellectual property office (IEPI) aims to reduce software piracy by offering a free software alternative through public libraries. The initiative is meant to encourage the use of legal software and thereby lower the piracy rate.

For the “Free Library” project, the Latin American Center for Intellectual Property Research for Development – known as Corporación Innovarte – has signed an agreement with the national IP office (IEPI), the Free Software Foundation of Ecuador and the associations of libraries. Corporación Innovarte aims to promote access to knowledge, innovation, and culture as tools for development.

The project is meant to use libraries as a vector to build a distribution channel for free software available to users. Free software will be offered as part of the usual library collections. The initiative will disseminate free software among the population, serving two goals: offering people different options while supporting the “spread of educational and research possibilities,” and contributing to the limitation of illegal software use.


Ecuador has already embraced ODF and it's a solid breeding ground for software freedom, i.e. independence. Glyn Moody, who linked to the above article, has said that Microsoft won't be happy. We have already shown how Microsoft responds to or retaliates against countries in south America if they 'dare' to deviate from Microsoft. A recent example, Argentina, may already be suing Microsoft for damages.

“We have already shown how Microsoft responds to or retaliates against countries in south America if they 'dare' to deviate from Microsoft.”Latin America is a victim not just of Microsoft; it has suffered a lot in recent decades, mostly because of imperialists, but we won't go further into the subject because it's politically charged.

Speaking of politics, it sure is nice when political parties take a stance specifically on software patents. There is a hot debate about it down under and the Labour party in New Zealand openly opposes software patents, based on NZOSS.

"The issue of who controls software that New Zealanders have developed is an important one. Copyright allows the developer to control the terms under which software is released. Patents remove that right and hand it over to a third party. Basically, software patents create a lottery around control of your own efforts.

"We are pleased that Commerce Minister Simon Power has said that the Government would support a select committee recommendation that the Intellectual Property Office develop guidelines for inventions that involve ‘embedded software’ - software that is built into a physical device.

“Software will still be protected by copyright, which prevents outright copying. We believe this to be sensible and the right decision," Clare Curran said.


The ‘embedded software’ trick deserves great scrutiny.

Beyond Software



We recently discussed gene patents (ownership of life's secrets), which are probably declared void by precedence [1, 2]. Here is a timely new item from The Atlantic:

When Patents Kill Innovation



[...]

Michelle Geis points to a new report in Genetics in Medicine suggesting that "exclusive licensing of gene patents does more to block competition and decrease patients’ access to testing than it does to spur innovation."


Over in India, the issue becomes more political as Indians rejected DNA/drug patents in order to maximise life and welfare. American Indians too (natives/First People) are disturbed by what they consider to be misuse of their DNA.

The Havasupai settlement appears to be the first payment to individuals who said their DNA was misused, several legal experts said, and came after the university spent $1.7 million fighting lawsuits by tribe members.


This story has more to do with invasion, not monopolisation. But either way, DNA patents belong to an area where patents mean death, in the form of TRIPS [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. This relates to ACTA provisions [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14], whose impact on software freedom we wrote about earlier in the week and so did swpat.org. ACTA is disgracing developing countries, probably increasing deaths for the sake of profit, and it is all about intellectual monopoly. Do individual nations have the power to reject ACTA without being cornered and sanctioned against? It's a rhetorical question.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day