Open Source Weblog

One example that has come to light in the last few days is the UK's Trading Standards organisation, which seems to have got confused - and a bit upset - by the Mozilla Foundation's strategy of letting anyone charge what they want to distribute the Firefox browser.

Mozilla's Gervase Markham details an amusing email conversation with Trading Standards in his Times column which shows just how difficult it can sometimes be for the establishment to accept a business model that is contrary to the status quo.

For anyone involved in Trading Standards the fact that a license allows a third party to charge a fee to distribute software that is free to download must be hard to come to terms with, so it is perhaps understandable that Trading Standards wrote to the Mozilla Foundation for clarification.

The response indicated just how much of a change of thinking is required, however: "If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted."

The response also indicates how the conversation around software copying has previously been framed - as Markham puts it - with the "automatic assumption that sharing software with your neighbour must be a crime".

The increased use of open source software will likely change that assumption over time, although given the range and complexity of open source licenses it is little wonder that Trading Standards had to check (and as Markham notes in a follow-up, credit to them that they did).

One point the conversation does bring up is how important it is that the establishment "gets" free and open source software licensing, especially when they are in a position to advise businesses and the public.

Free and open source software does not make it impossible to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation but it does require organisations such as Trading Standards to understand it. Given the dollars that are being ploughed into the anti-piracy movement, open source vendors might well be advised to consider investing in educating the powers that be.