11 ms·

These are rules for States. It has no bearing whatsoever on the GPL. This prevents a country from forcing somebody like Microsoft or Apple to give up their so

by dak1 11y ago

These are rules for States. It has no bearing whatsoever on the GPL. This prevents a country from forcing somebody like Microsoft or Apple to give up their source code for "inspection" in order to access their market. It also helps to prevent States from demanding and acquiring encryption or other private keys (there's a separate section that also explicitly forbids mandating backdoors be added). Not everything in the TPP is bad.

zxcvcxz 11y ago
Sounds pretty bad to me.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
crdoconnor 11y ago
>This prevents a country from forcing somebody like Microsoft or Apple to give up their source code for "inspection" in order to access their market. Since when is that a good thing?
- tylermauthe 11y ago
  Since Capitalism ;)
- michaelt 11y ago
  America hopes to use TPP as a model for a similar deal with China, so America has insisted on a bunch of rules you'd only expect in a trade deal with a banana republic - like investor-state dispute settlement. At present, "Chinese officials have learned to tackle multinational companies, often forcing them to form joint ventures with [Chinese companies] and transfer the latest technology in exchange for current and future business opportunities" [1] which is good for China but bad for America. America wants a treaty with China that will stop them doing that. Personally I'd be surprised if China went for such a deal, regardless of what happens with TPP. [1] https://hbr.org/2010/12/china-vs-the-world-whose-technology-is-it https://hbr.org/2010/12/china-vs-the-world-whose-technology-...
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    The TPP is actually supposed to exclude China and create a competing trade bloc. It was even called the "everybody but China deal" by some people. All part of Obama's "pivot to Asia"... supposedly. However, given the contents of the treaty, I don't think this exclusion is something that really bothers China. China wanted in on the WTO bad. Real bad. China doesn't really care about the TPP.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      To quote Obama: > The TPP means that America will write the rules of the road in the 21st century. http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/05/trade-tpp-idINKCN0SU0SR20151105 http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/05/trade-tpp-idINKCN0S... It very much sounds like they’re treating the rest of the world as colonies.
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        Yeah, but they say that in order to appeal to us voters, who are assumed all to be ignorant jingoist buffoons, ready to support any idiocy so long as it can be imposed on foreigners. It's actually like many other political efforts in this country, in that only the interests of the very richest donors, corporations, and lobbyists are considered.
        crdoconnor 11y ago
        Obama sees the TPP as a key part of his legacy (along with Obamacare). I think that sentence might have been as much about self-aggrandizement as it was jingoism. He really seems to think that the TPP is a key plank in shoring up American power in Asia. Which, if it were a better treaty, it might.
      - oldmanjay 11y ago
        Not colonies, markets. The connotations of your word choice seem solely intended to make emotional connections that the reality does not support.
- briandear 11y ago
  Since Microsoft and Apple spend hundreds of millions developing that code. To let a country 'inspect' it is to put valuable intellectual property at risk. Would you trust China to inspect your source code for a project you spent millions developing a unique technology? Should Boeing open source their aircraft wing designs? To suggest such is ludicrous. Do you really want governments with access to everyone's source code?
  - e12e 11y ago
    I'm not sure I'd want to allow China to sell a "secure operating system" to government agencies - and not be able to demand source code access as part of the bidding process. I'm not sure I'd want a US company to supply hardware/OS to schools, and not be able to stipulate source code availability in the contract. I'm not sure if this is the kind of things that this makes illegal -- but I wouldn't be surprised if it is.
xg15 11y ago
It also would prevent government agencies from demanding i.e. the source code of a car's ECU to verify its safety and emissions behavior. The only way out of this would be to declare car ECUs (or other systems) as "critical infrastructure", the definition of which I'm sure will be subject to many political tug-of-wars once this is implemented.
- stingraycharles 11y ago
  Playing the devil's advocate here, but you shouldn't need access to a car's source code to measure its emissions. The test is broken, not the software.
  - 15155 11y ago
    Expounding further - what government agency has the time or money to actually sift through mountains of source code? From a pure financial standpoint, there's no possible way that it isn't cheaper to just measure real emissions than attempt some kind of software analysis for every version of every vehicle on the market. Furthermore, an agency inspecting source code has absolutely no way to tell whether or not that the source they've been given is actually what's running on a car.
    - IshKebab 11y ago
      You not only have to sift through the code, but compile and flash it yourself.
    - granos 11y ago
      If you have source code then you can tell whether a particular executable was built from said source code. Pull the executable out of the car and also build the source code yourself as instructed by the manufacturer, compare the two binaries. If the binaries don't match, then whatever certification the device needs automatically fails and it cannot be sold. What that means is that later on, if "Something Bad" happens, you are in a position to be certain of what code was running. This makes investigation much easier as there is no chance that the original source code cannot be found when needed later. This does get a bit more complicated with software updates, especially OTA updates.
zwarag 11y ago
> It also helps to prevent States from demanding and acquiring encryption or other private keys boom, encryption done wrong!! Look at PGP, source code is open. Nobody can crack it yet. But DO we know if Apple is really on "our" side or are they just marketing it? Well, if our governments could see into the code. They could tell us. And if you tell me. Well there could be some people working for the government that could leak the code. Well then I tell you, just don't hire people who worked for a company for many years as their lead [[something]]. > Not everything in the TPP is bad. I go by the rule. If it is a big thing and will alter a lot of stuff. It primarily is bad, very very bad. And they got to convince they are doing good.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > Well, if our governments could see into the code. They could tell us. They could but they never would.
  - namlem 11y ago
    The US government wouldn't, but wouldn't it only take one? Iceland might do it.
mcv 11y ago
I think it primarily bans states from using access to the source code to prevent vendor lock-in. States tend to invest in enormous software projects. If they need specific new features, and the original vendor is unable or unwilling to provide those for a reasonable price, this would prevent the state from going to someone else to continue development. The original vendor will be able to ask unreasonable prices. When Peru made a law demanding that the state has access to the source code for that exact purpose, Microsoft was upset, because they didn't want to play by those rules, but also doesn't want to lose that market.
kbutler 11y ago
There are trade-offs in this. It means states cannot require code for certification, inspection, and continued development in case of abandonment. But it also means that states cannot require code for copying and illicit use. I prefer the more open options.
marcosdumay 11y ago
Maybe not everything in it is bad, but this part is very bad. It means other countries can not have the software they buy inspected for NSA (or whoever else) planted backdoors. It also means that countries can not ask for source code in a guarantee that the software will remain useful if the company goes away. What it does not mean is that those countries will stop pirating software. There's no mechanism for enforcing that.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  They can still do both of those things, they just can't stop the import of software that has not been inspected or had the source shared. So a government can still choose to use open source software, and have whoever do whatever consulting on that software, they just can't refuse to allow a proprietary vendor to offer their product for sale.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
andrewmutz 11y ago
Just to agree with this point and elaborate: when the text uses the word "party" it refers to a nation signing the treaty, and not people. So when it says "No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory," Party refers to a government.
- riskable 11y ago
  In a State where the GPL is enforceable would it be a violation of the TPP to require that a foreign company comply with the GPL and release the source code? I think that's the $1,000,000 question.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    No, because that's just enforcing a private contract.
  - pawelk 11y ago
    As I understand it: a government can not say to a foreign company "we won't buy your software / won't allow your product in our market unless you give us the source code" and that's it. It has nothing to do with GPL, possibly with the exception that writing "the provided software shall be released under GPL license" into government-sponsored bids would be illegal as it basically forces a company to provide the source code as a requirement to do business.
lumberjack 11y ago
Is that a good thing?
DannyBee 11y ago
So, as an actual lawyer i actually think i disagree with you in practice. Imagine for a second that the US gets tough on GPL violators, and says "well, if you want to sell android devices in the US, you have to produce the GPL source code". Or something even simpler, along the lines of "products marketed in the US must comply with all licensing obligations of software that it contains". This one actually happens behind the scenes sometimes right now, though you don't see it. I believe they would not be allowed to do that under this provision. It clearly falls into:"1. No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory." 3 is no exception: "3. Nothing in this Article shall preclude: (a) the inclusion or implementation of terms and conditions related to the provision of source code in commercially negotiated contracts;" The GPL and other open source licenses are arguably not commercially negotiated contracts. So yeah, it doesn't stop private citizens or parties from doing whatever they want. It may stop you from being able to create laws and enforce them at import/export time around actually complying with OSS licenses. Which is really not great, since it in practice means free reign. You will never get state supported companies in their own countries to comply with licenses. Generally, your only course of action is to try to enforce elsewhere, or ban import/export. Here, in the case of the US, you will not be allowed to ban import unless all of that open source software is completely US written. (since the provision limits requiring "source code of software owned by a person of another Party". Of course, what it means by "software owned by a person of another Party" is also up in the air, since most open source software has many copyright owners , so does it mean complete ownership, partial ownership, or what?)
- bcg1 11y ago
  Danny, In your opinion how does this affect the ability of governments to pass laws requiring them to use only free and open source software? I think this is incredibly important not only for software freedom but for a properly functioning free society in general (think of voting, financial accounting and digital currencies, etc). Would such use be considered "critical infrastructure" or does this provision preclude passing such laws?
skwirl 11y ago
What I've been gathering is that there is no way the text of the TPP could have been interpreted favorably because people had already made up their minds before seeing a word of it. Every single thing in it is getting the most negative, (often) far fetched interpretation imaginable to fit the predefined narrative. FUD wins the day. FUD always wins the day.
phkahler 11y ago
To me, it says a government can not mandate the use of open source software: "No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory." Or am I misinterpreting that? Does this preclude a government from requiring the use of open source software in some cases? IANAL, but I don't think it precludes government USE of OSS, but I think it means they can not have an open source requirement in a bidding process. On another note, what IS the purpose of this language in TPP if not a direct attack on open source software?
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  I've got to agree this seems like an offensive against democratic movement towards open source being required in the public sector. With all the secrecy one has to try and determine who might have written these clauses (USA multinational corporations presumably) and what the clauses are supposed to achieve (higher profits). Preventing countries from freely moving away from the strongest capitalist models of software production seems like something that's likely to appear in TPP & TTIP; anything socialist also seems like it's going to be a target.
RexRollman 11y ago
Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
NickHaflinger 11y ago
"These are rules for States. It has no bearing whatsoever on the GPL." TPP is designed to give commercial entities equivalent rights to nation states. That's what the 'Investor-State Dispute Settlement' provisions refer to. Under these provisions a commercial entity could 'steal' Open Source code, without the requirement to release the source code. In effect rendering licenses such as the GPL unenforceable. At the very least it may cause a dilution and hinder the growth of the Open Source sector. Now I wonder whose interests that that would advance and who helped to write such provisions.
- snowwrestler 11y ago
  That is not what investor-state dispute resolution does. If it was, the GPL would have been broken a long time ago because ISDS has been part of bilateral treaties for decades. ISDS is intended to provide standing for a company from one country to request relief from the government of another country. Without ISDS, the Vietnamese national government could simply take whatever U.S. property is located in Vietnam, and the U.S. company would have no recourse.
Zigurd 11y ago
So you're not allowed to mandate that back-doors are added to software. But you're not able to look for them in systems you buy for what might be security or infrastructure systems?
quadrangle 11y ago
Just because this clause is completely unrelated to the GPL doesn't make the clause okay. It's still shitty because it blocks democratic governance options to have policies that require source release for various situations (such as requiring Open Source for government software use or making policies that software in schools needs to be Open Source etc)

by dak1 11y ago

zxcvcxz 11y ago

Sounds pretty bad to me.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

crdoconnor 11y ago

>This prevents a country from forcing somebody like Microsoft or Apple to give up their source code for "inspection" in order to access their market. Since when is that a good thing?

tylermauthe 11y ago
Since Capitalism ;)
michaelt 11y ago
America hopes to use TPP as a model for a similar deal with China, so America has insisted on a bunch of rules you'd only expect in a trade deal with a banana republic - like investor-state dispute settlement. At present, "Chinese officials have learned to tackle multinational companies, often forcing them to form joint ventures with [Chinese companies] and transfer the latest technology in exchange for current and future business opportunities" [1] which is good for China but bad for America. America wants a treaty with China that will stop them doing that. Personally I'd be surprised if China went for such a deal, regardless of what happens with TPP. [1] https://hbr.org/2010/12/china-vs-the-world-whose-technology-is-it https://hbr.org/2010/12/china-vs-the-world-whose-technology-...
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  The TPP is actually supposed to exclude China and create a competing trade bloc. It was even called the "everybody but China deal" by some people. All part of Obama's "pivot to Asia"... supposedly. However, given the contents of the treaty, I don't think this exclusion is something that really bothers China. China wanted in on the WTO bad. Real bad. China doesn't really care about the TPP.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    To quote Obama: > The TPP means that America will write the rules of the road in the 21st century. http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/05/trade-tpp-idINKCN0SU0SR20151105 http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/05/trade-tpp-idINKCN0S... It very much sounds like they’re treating the rest of the world as colonies.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      Yeah, but they say that in order to appeal to us voters, who are assumed all to be ignorant jingoist buffoons, ready to support any idiocy so long as it can be imposed on foreigners. It's actually like many other political efforts in this country, in that only the interests of the very richest donors, corporations, and lobbyists are considered.
      - crdoconnor 11y ago
        Obama sees the TPP as a key part of his legacy (along with Obamacare). I think that sentence might have been as much about self-aggrandizement as it was jingoism. He really seems to think that the TPP is a key plank in shoring up American power in Asia. Which, if it were a better treaty, it might.
    - oldmanjay 11y ago
      Not colonies, markets. The connotations of your word choice seem solely intended to make emotional connections that the reality does not support.
briandear 11y ago
Since Microsoft and Apple spend hundreds of millions developing that code. To let a country 'inspect' it is to put valuable intellectual property at risk. Would you trust China to inspect your source code for a project you spent millions developing a unique technology? Should Boeing open source their aircraft wing designs? To suggest such is ludicrous. Do you really want governments with access to everyone's source code?
- e12e 11y ago
  I'm not sure I'd want to allow China to sell a "secure operating system" to government agencies - and not be able to demand source code access as part of the bidding process. I'm not sure I'd want a US company to supply hardware/OS to schools, and not be able to stipulate source code availability in the contract. I'm not sure if this is the kind of things that this makes illegal -- but I wouldn't be surprised if it is.

xg15 11y ago

It also would prevent government agencies from demanding i.e. the source code of a car's ECU to verify its safety and emissions behavior. The only way out of this would be to declare car ECUs (or other systems) as "critical infrastructure", the definition of which I'm sure will be subject to many political tug-of-wars once this is implemented.

stingraycharles 11y ago
Playing the devil's advocate here, but you shouldn't need access to a car's source code to measure its emissions. The test is broken, not the software.
- 15155 11y ago
  Expounding further - what government agency has the time or money to actually sift through mountains of source code? From a pure financial standpoint, there's no possible way that it isn't cheaper to just measure real emissions than attempt some kind of software analysis for every version of every vehicle on the market. Furthermore, an agency inspecting source code has absolutely no way to tell whether or not that the source they've been given is actually what's running on a car.
  - IshKebab 11y ago
    You not only have to sift through the code, but compile and flash it yourself.
  - granos 11y ago
    If you have source code then you can tell whether a particular executable was built from said source code. Pull the executable out of the car and also build the source code yourself as instructed by the manufacturer, compare the two binaries. If the binaries don't match, then whatever certification the device needs automatically fails and it cannot be sold. What that means is that later on, if "Something Bad" happens, you are in a position to be certain of what code was running. This makes investigation much easier as there is no chance that the original source code cannot be found when needed later. This does get a bit more complicated with software updates, especially OTA updates.

zwarag 11y ago

> It also helps to prevent States from demanding and acquiring encryption or other private keys boom, encryption done wrong!! Look at PGP, source code is open. Nobody can crack it yet. But DO we know if Apple is really on "our" side or are they just marketing it? Well, if our governments could see into the code. They could tell us. And if you tell me. Well there could be some people working for the government that could leak the code. Well then I tell you, just don't hire people who worked for a company for many years as their lead [[something]]. > Not everything in the TPP is bad. I go by the rule. If it is a big thing and will alter a lot of stuff. It primarily is bad, very very bad. And they got to convince they are doing good.

jacquesm 11y ago
> Well, if our governments could see into the code. They could tell us. They could but they never would.
- namlem 11y ago
  The US government wouldn't, but wouldn't it only take one? Iceland might do it.

mcv 11y ago

I think it primarily bans states from using access to the source code to prevent vendor lock-in. States tend to invest in enormous software projects. If they need specific new features, and the original vendor is unable or unwilling to provide those for a reasonable price, this would prevent the state from going to someone else to continue development. The original vendor will be able to ask unreasonable prices. When Peru made a law demanding that the state has access to the source code for that exact purpose, Microsoft was upset, because they didn't want to play by those rules, but also doesn't want to lose that market.

kbutler 11y ago

There are trade-offs in this. It means states cannot require code for certification, inspection, and continued development in case of abandonment. But it also means that states cannot require code for copying and illicit use. I prefer the more open options.

marcosdumay 11y ago

Maybe not everything in it is bad, but this part is very bad. It means other countries can not have the software they buy inspected for NSA (or whoever else) planted backdoors. It also means that countries can not ask for source code in a guarantee that the software will remain useful if the company goes away. What it does not mean is that those countries will stop pirating software. There's no mechanism for enforcing that.

maxerickson 11y ago
They can still do both of those things, they just can't stop the import of software that has not been inspected or had the source shared. So a government can still choose to use open source software, and have whoever do whatever consulting on that software, they just can't refuse to allow a proprietary vendor to offer their product for sale.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

andrewmutz 11y ago

Just to agree with this point and elaborate: when the text uses the word "party" it refers to a nation signing the treaty, and not people. So when it says "No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory," Party refers to a government.

riskable 11y ago
In a State where the GPL is enforceable would it be a violation of the TPP to require that a foreign company comply with the GPL and release the source code? I think that's the $1,000,000 question.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  No, because that's just enforcing a private contract.
- pawelk 11y ago
  As I understand it: a government can not say to a foreign company "we won't buy your software / won't allow your product in our market unless you give us the source code" and that's it. It has nothing to do with GPL, possibly with the exception that writing "the provided software shall be released under GPL license" into government-sponsored bids would be illegal as it basically forces a company to provide the source code as a requirement to do business.

lumberjack 11y ago

Is that a good thing?

DannyBee 11y ago

So, as an actual lawyer i actually think i disagree with you in practice. Imagine for a second that the US gets tough on GPL violators, and says "well, if you want to sell android devices in the US, you have to produce the GPL source code". Or something even simpler, along the lines of "products marketed in the US must comply with all licensing obligations of software that it contains". This one actually happens behind the scenes sometimes right now, though you don't see it. I believe they would not be allowed to do that under this provision. It clearly falls into:"1. No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory." 3 is no exception: "3. Nothing in this Article shall preclude: (a) the inclusion or implementation of terms and conditions related to the provision of source code in commercially negotiated contracts;" The GPL and other open source licenses are arguably not commercially negotiated contracts. So yeah, it doesn't stop private citizens or parties from doing whatever they want. It may stop you from being able to create laws and enforce them at import/export time around actually complying with OSS licenses. Which is really not great, since it in practice means free reign. You will never get state supported companies in their own countries to comply with licenses. Generally, your only course of action is to try to enforce elsewhere, or ban import/export. Here, in the case of the US, you will not be allowed to ban import unless all of that open source software is completely US written. (since the provision limits requiring "source code of software owned by a person of another Party". Of course, what it means by "software owned by a person of another Party" is also up in the air, since most open source software has many copyright owners , so does it mean complete ownership, partial ownership, or what?)

bcg1 11y ago
Danny, In your opinion how does this affect the ability of governments to pass laws requiring them to use only free and open source software? I think this is incredibly important not only for software freedom but for a properly functioning free society in general (think of voting, financial accounting and digital currencies, etc). Would such use be considered "critical infrastructure" or does this provision preclude passing such laws?

skwirl 11y ago

What I've been gathering is that there is no way the text of the TPP could have been interpreted favorably because people had already made up their minds before seeing a word of it. Every single thing in it is getting the most negative, (often) far fetched interpretation imaginable to fit the predefined narrative. FUD wins the day. FUD always wins the day.

phkahler 11y ago

To me, it says a government can not mandate the use of open source software: "No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory." Or am I misinterpreting that? Does this preclude a government from requiring the use of open source software in some cases? IANAL, but I don't think it precludes government USE of OSS, but I think it means they can not have an open source requirement in a bidding process. On another note, what IS the purpose of this language in TPP if not a direct attack on open source software?

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
I've got to agree this seems like an offensive against democratic movement towards open source being required in the public sector. With all the secrecy one has to try and determine who might have written these clauses (USA multinational corporations presumably) and what the clauses are supposed to achieve (higher profits). Preventing countries from freely moving away from the strongest capitalist models of software production seems like something that's likely to appear in TPP & TTIP; anything socialist also seems like it's going to be a target.

RexRollman 11y ago

Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

NickHaflinger 11y ago

"These are rules for States. It has no bearing whatsoever on the GPL." TPP is designed to give commercial entities equivalent rights to nation states. That's what the 'Investor-State Dispute Settlement' provisions refer to. Under these provisions a commercial entity could 'steal' Open Source code, without the requirement to release the source code. In effect rendering licenses such as the GPL unenforceable. At the very least it may cause a dilution and hinder the growth of the Open Source sector. Now I wonder whose interests that that would advance and who helped to write such provisions.

snowwrestler 11y ago
That is not what investor-state dispute resolution does. If it was, the GPL would have been broken a long time ago because ISDS has been part of bilateral treaties for decades. ISDS is intended to provide standing for a company from one country to request relief from the government of another country. Without ISDS, the Vietnamese national government could simply take whatever U.S. property is located in Vietnam, and the U.S. company would have no recourse.

Zigurd 11y ago

So you're not allowed to mandate that back-doors are added to software. But you're not able to look for them in systems you buy for what might be security or infrastructure systems?

quadrangle 11y ago

Just because this clause is completely unrelated to the GPL doesn't make the clause okay. It's still shitty because it blocks democratic governance options to have policies that require source release for various situations (such as requiring Open Source for government software use or making policies that software in schools needs to be Open Source etc)