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It is... difficult for me to find a copy of the general Definitions section of the TPP, so I have to guess. :( > No Party shall require the transfer of, or acc

It is... difficult for me to find a copy of the general Definitions section of the TPP, so I have to guess. :( > 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. The meaning of this sentence hinges on the definition of the word "Party". My guess is that a "Party" is a signatory of the treaty. So, my read on this is that no government "shall require the transfer of & etc of source code..." "as a condition for the import, distribution & etc..." of software that is owned by someone (or something) that is not a citizen or is not based in that country. I suspect that software made and sold within a given country would not be subject to this restriction. I'm not clear on how this interacts with multinational corporations. I'm not entirely clear on how this affects state or local governments. (I expect that Federal treaties trump state and local law, but I'm not sure.) I'm also not certain that my analysis is correct. Edit: Ooh. I really super wonder how this interacts with code for which the original author(s) has relinquished all ownership and interest in. ;)

vidarh 11y ago
> I suspect that software made and sold within a given country would not be subject to this restriction. Unless it is "software owned by a person of another Party". Which has the defacto effect of making it impossible to require such provisions domestically because all you'd need to do to circumvent it would be to transfer ownership to a suitable shell company and/or because domestic companies would justifiably be upset at being subject to harsher rules than foreign companies.
- simoncion 11y ago
  I was hoping that I wasn't going to have to add the "of course, unless the thing that ultimately owned the software was based out of another country" qualifier to that statement. I guess I should have. :( > ...domestic companies would justifiably be upset at being subject to harsher rules than foreign companies. As I read it, nothing in the quoted TPP section precludes software purchasers from making access to source code a requirement of purchase. It prohibits governments from blocking the sale of "foreign-produced" software in their country if the software owner refuses to make the source code available.

vidarh 11y ago

> I suspect that software made and sold within a given country would not be subject to this restriction. Unless it is "software owned by a person of another Party". Which has the defacto effect of making it impossible to require such provisions domestically because all you'd need to do to circumvent it would be to transfer ownership to a suitable shell company and/or because domestic companies would justifiably be upset at being subject to harsher rules than foreign companies.

simoncion 11y ago
I was hoping that I wasn't going to have to add the "of course, unless the thing that ultimately owned the software was based out of another country" qualifier to that statement. I guess I should have. :( > ...domestic companies would justifiably be upset at being subject to harsher rules than foreign companies. As I read it, nothing in the quoted TPP section precludes software purchasers from making access to source code a requirement of purchase. It prohibits governments from blocking the sale of "foreign-produced" software in their country if the software owner refuses to make the source code available.