The pioneer of the Free Software movement, Richard Stallman's (RMS) has some suggestions for Nepal's new constitution, communicated over a series of mails during the last week. I am separating each mail by a separator like the one below: -------------------------------------
Here are some suggestions. [No patents on software, writing, art; no business method patents] No patent-like monopoly shall limit the right to make, and subsequently to distribute, use, and authorize the use of, literary or artistic works, or the right to perform activities consisting of manipulation of information, data or knowledge, or the right to carry out business methods. [Right of reverse engineering] The right of any citizen to study the operation and structure of any technological product that he owns, and to study nondestructively any technological product that he is lent, and to publish the knowledge obtained from such study, shall not be limited by any law, or by any contract accepted by the citizen without real negotiation, regardless of where the contract was signed. [Rejection of the misguided concept of "intellectual property"] Copyrights and patents are privileges granted as artificial incentives for activities expected to promoting progress. The state may through legislation increase or decrease the extent of existing copyright and patent privileges, or future ones, in order to achieve the best balance between two public interests: promoting progress, and the public's freedom to use published works and ideas. [Freedom to photograph and record] The citizen's right to occasionally make recordings of sights, sounds, and events, when in a place where the public may freely enter, and to publish these recordings, shall not be limited by any law, order, private rule, or contract. (In particular, the copyright on posters or sculptures that appear in a photo, or music heard playing in a sound recording, cannot interfere with publication of the photo or recording.) (This has no effect on concerts or movie showings that require buying a ticket, because those are not places where the public may freely enter.) [Freedom from unjustified surveillance] No person, entity, public agency, or combination of those may use computing technology to systematically and automatically store beyond a short time any information about individuals, except when the individuals are in a place off limits to the public and with permission of the owner of the place, or when inherently necessary for dealings those individuals enter into, or pursuant to a court order detailing the individuals to be surveilled and the type of information to be stored. [Prohibition of National ID Cards] The state shall not issue credentials to individuals except limited to a specific purpose, and no such credential shall be checked, or its data requested, for any purpose other than the one for which it was issued, except pursuant to a specific court order or at the scene of a crime. -------------------------- Digital Rights Management Please do not use the term "Digital Rights Management". Please call it "Digital Restrictions Management". -------------------------- Regarding anonymity, I think that the proposed articles to limit surveillance and prohibit general ID cards will go a long way to do that. If a business or agency can't ask people to show their national ID cards, it is some trouble to identify everyone, so they probably won't bother. This quote may be useful, especially since you are so close to Tibet: >From Born in Tibet by Chögyam Trungpa, foreword by Marco Pallis It is not only such obvious means of intimidation as machine guns and concentration camps that count; such a petty product of the printing press as an identity card, by making it easy for the authorities to keep constant watch on everybody's movements, represents in the long run a more effective curb on liberty. In Tibet, for instance, the introduction of such a system by the Chinese Communists, following the abortive rising of 1959,and its application to food rationing has been one of the principal means of keeping the whole population in subjection and compelling them to do the work decreed by their foreign overlords. -------------------------- Small changes in these two: [Right of reverse engineering] The right of any individual to study the operation and structure of any technological product that he owns, and to study nondestructively any technological product that he is lent, and to publish the knowledge obtained from such study, shall not be limited by any law, or by any contract accepted by the individual without real negotiation, regardless of where the contract was signed. [Freedom from unjustified surveillance] No person, entity, public agency, or combination of those may use computing technology to systematically and automatically store beyond a short time any information about individuals, except when the individuals are in a place off limits to the public and with permission of the owner of the place; or when, as and for as long as - Hide quoted text - inherently necessary for dealings those individuals enter into; or pursuant to a court order detailing the individuals to be surveilled and the type of information to be stored. -------------------------- Here are more suggested articles for some of the issues you suggested. [Freedom to share published works] No law, order, rule or contract shall limit the freedom of individuals to noncommercially copy and redistribute to other individuals copies of any literary or artistic work that has been published or otherwise intentionally made available by its authors to a large number of people. [Freedom to use encryption] The right of individuals and organizations to use technical means to protect the privacy of their communications shall not be limited by any law, order, rule or contract. [Free standards for state-public communication] To promote competition in ICT, entities forming part of the state, or controlled or owned even partially by the state, or engaged in business that requires a specific license from the state, shall use exclusively formats that are publicly documented and that everyone is free to implement, for digital communication with the public, for digital communication with each other, and for archiving of digital information. (Note that these formats include encryption formats, so this does not forbid the use of encryption, but requires that the format and the encryption method be published and thus given careful study. Encryption experts say you should never trust encryption software unless the encryption algorithm has been publicly and carefully studied; otherwise it is likely to contain a subtle but disastrous weakness.) -------------------------- The first 8 or so amendments to the US constitution are very good defenses of human rights. Nepal should consider them too. -------------------------- Thanks, Bibek --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ FOSS Nepal mailing list: [email protected] http://groups.google.com/group/foss-nepal To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] Community website: http://www.fossnepal.org/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
