Home

Salt and Software

80 years ago, on a fine summers night under a mango tree, a wizened old man was woken up and arrested in a village near Dandi, Gujarat. The reason: he had made salt from the rich shoresoils of the Indian Ocean. At the time, by law, no one could make salt without the favour of one Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, also known as Lord Irwin, Earl of Halifax, and other aliases including Imperial Viceroy. The old saltmaker was Mohandas Gandhi. You are probably wondering, "What could salt possibly have to do with software?" At this point in time: a lot. To explain, we must first touch on a WTO treaty. As a WTO member, India has found herself bound by the WTO "Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement" (TRIPS) ruling. This broad ruling is being exploited by some to force developing nations to add stringent controls and to enforce many controversial requirements. [1] [2] This includes patent clauses that prevent and impede the manufacture of generic AIDS/cancer/malaria medications. This despite the fact that generics are recognized as an essential tool in preventing and controlling the effect of these crippling diseases and disastrous epidemics. [1, 2, 3]. Appalling. But let us not digress.

The part of TRIPS we shall worry about here is Article 27. This covers the patentability of software and business methods. In much the same way that the Salt Laws began to take effect, some interpretations of TRIPS are beginning to affect software developers and entrepreneurs in developing nations today. Prior to TRIPS, software developers and entrepreneurs here were free from at least this one worry. Software and business patents were illegal. You had complete freedom to innovate and write code as desired and the ability to compete on an equal footing with anyone else. No longer. Now, these laws have landed on our shores and have marched right up to our doorsteps, nay, right up to our desktops. They could threaten even the most trivial of endeavours. Are you using a linked list in your code? Because of TRIPS, you may now be in infringement of this patent. Are you using a hash table in your code? You may now be in infringement of this patent.
 
It is sad that we as developers have to worry about these issues. We are not lawyers or legislators and share no overwhelming desire to be involved in those fields. One does not need accreditation in patent law to realize that these too-loosely defined laws can be exploited by some megacorporations to impinge upon the ablity of others to compete with them. The vast majority of our corporations in developing nations are small to medium sized. We simply cannot afford the battalions of lobbyists and lawyers and legal costs associated with G8 style campaigns.

So. Shouldn't our legislators in developing nations be questioning these laws? How is it in the interests of our populations, our businesses, our industries and our economies, to be beholden to these laws? I believe many of our non-monopolist counterparts in G8 nations share our concerns. My only goal with this essay is merely to make more of us here aware of these problems... Lest we lose the right to write code as we wish and to compete on an equal footing just as one fine summers night in the past we realized our loss of the inalienable right to make salt on the shores of Dandi.

jayakumar – Sun, 2006 – 12 – 24 12:32
links inline
links inline