4 ms·

There are already lots of "open source" seeds. Most of the cheap seeds on the seed rack at the dollar store are "open source" for instance. Seeds like Black Se

by jqm 12y ago

There are already lots of "open source" seeds. Most of the cheap seeds on the seed rack at the dollar store are "open source" for instance. Seeds like Black Seed Simpson Lettuce. Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans. These seeds are not F1 hybrids as most seeds used by commercial operations are. Instead, they are open pollinated meaning you can harvest the seed and have the same plant next year. Anyone could buy a pack of these seeds and start selecting away. So, the concept is not new, not novel....there is a large bank of seeds "in the public domain" already. The problem in my opinion is the ability to patent things like "a red carrot". But this problem is hardly limited to seeds. No offense to the original poster but this article kind of rambled and the actual point was vaguely made and hard to pick out. I think it involved a guy in a hemp shirt with a Carl Marx poster at some point. I'm sure he is a cool guy but probably unlikely to be taken seriously by most farmers and seed breeders. The real answer in my opinion (at least for commercial growers)? A farmers collective. Stop being the seed companies victim and start owning your own genetics. As a group they could do this and I believe they should.

zodiac 12y ago
The OSSI page explains that "If [public domain seeds] were available only in a traditional commons, people could obtain them, breed with them, and restrict their use through patents or licenses", whereas seeds with the OSSI pledge cannot. It's analogous to how public domain software is not Free Software (by Richard Stallman's definition). Maybe it would be more technically accurate to name the OSSI something like the Free Germplasm Project.
- jqm 12y ago
  Ah, Ok. Yes, I suppose one could get open pollinated seeds currently available, select and hybridize them, and patent the resulting product (which probably is more or less what seed companies have been doing). So this attempts to stop that practice on seeds from the OSSI breeders. It would have been nice had they been more clear about this in the article and talked a bit less about what color of shirts the people were wearing.

by jqm 12y ago

zodiac 12y ago

The OSSI page explains that "If [public domain seeds] were available only in a traditional commons, people could obtain them, breed with them, and restrict their use through patents or licenses", whereas seeds with the OSSI pledge cannot. It's analogous to how public domain software is not Free Software (by Richard Stallman's definition). Maybe it would be more technically accurate to name the OSSI something like the Free Germplasm Project.

jqm 12y ago
Ah, Ok. Yes, I suppose one could get open pollinated seeds currently available, select and hybridize them, and patent the resulting product (which probably is more or less what seed companies have been doing). So this attempts to stop that practice on seeds from the OSSI breeders. It would have been nice had they been more clear about this in the article and talked a bit less about what color of shirts the people were wearing.