March will rally for open source law

CALL IT THE million bit march.

Scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, the demonstration will coincide with the Linuxworld Conference and Expo, which is taking place here next week. Open source and free software supporters are expected to gather at Moscone Center, where Linuxworld will be held, and make their way through San Francisco to City Hall, said Jeremy Hogan, community relations manager at Red Hat Inc., who is helping to organize the effort.

The march isn't aimed at protesting current controversial legislation that has caused a stir in the software developer community of late, such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Rather it aims to bring attention to proposed legislation that would require California's government offices to use software with freely available source code rather than products from proprietary vendors such as Microsoft Corp.

"Of course, there is a lot of legislation that is very favorable to folks that subsist on the exclusive ownership of their code. We have lobbied against those bills," Hogan said.

"It's easy to get negative about other people's ideas. This is an opportunity to say, 'Here's a better idea: consider open source as an alternative.' "

That "better idea" is embodied in a proposed piece of legislation called the Digital Software Security Act (DSSA), being drafted by Walt Pennington, a lawyer in San Diego. Pennington noted he is not a software developer, nor does he represent any in his practice.

"I'm just an interested user seeking to advance social justice and competition in software development," he said.

The proposed bill aims to allow California's government to have better control over the security of its software, as well as to protect itself from being locked into doing business with a single vendor, Pennington said.

As it is drafted, the DSSA would require government offices to use software in which the source code is freely available for viewing and modification, as is the case with the Linux operating system.

Similar legislation has been debated in governments around the world. For instance, legislators in Peru have proposed a bill in its congress that would require the government to use open source software over proprietary software whenever possible. Germany has also made progress toward the use of open source software in various pockets of its government. Its Federal Ministry of the Interior in Berlin announced a deal with IBM Corp. to purchase hardware and software products that support Linux, hoping to avoid a "mono" IT environment.

For Pennington's drafted legislation to make any progress, he believes he will need corporate and political backing. Pennington is lobbying California assembly members to introduce the legislation, and he is in discussions with vendors including IBM Corp. and Red Hat to back the effort, he said.

So far, the first of the politicians to listen has been San Diego Assemblyman Juan Vargas.

"The notion of promoting open source software in state government, that's a great idea," said George Balgos, field representative for Vargas, who has been meeting with Pennington about his bill. "We like it in concept, however, we'd like to do a little more research."

For one, Balgos said that getting legislation passed can be a tricky task. "My guess is that depending on what level of state government you introduce it in, you are going to have different levels of success," Balgos said.

"If you try to introduce it statewide, it might get diluted as it goes through the legislative process," he said. "If you introduce it ... as a pilot project in a particular municipality, then I think the legislation would be more amenable."

Balgos said he has asked Pennington to come up with some alternative drafts of the bill that might have a better chance of passage. If it gains a sponsor in the Assembly, the bill probably will be introduced in January, Balgos and Pennington said.

"Legislation is always a compromise. I'm willing to take my victories wherever I can receive them," Pennington said.

In the meantime, Pennington and the open source activists leading the march on San Francisco's City Hall are working to build some momentum behind the bill. They said it is well timed, as there is a groundswell of support for protecting the freedom of software development.

"Now is the time to take a role in politics," Red Hat's Hogan said.


August 9, 2002 5:48 pm PT