Ted and Jos?, The FSF has a blog post here that might provide some insights: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/time-to-act-on-tpp-is-now-rallies-against-tpp-in-washington-d-c-november-14-18 That is from last November, but the relevant passage, perhaps in a temporal vacuum, seems to be the second paragraph with the following sentences focused on the GPL: "The regulation would not affect freely licensed software, such as software under the GPL, that already comes with its own conditions ensuring users receive source code. Such licenses are grants of permission from the copyright holders on the work, who are not a "Party" to TPP." The Software Freedom Conservancy has a post on this as well, from the same time frame: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/09/gpl-tpp/ Regards, Marc> On Feb 4, 2016, at 4:01 PM, Ted Harding <Ted.Harding at wlandres.net> wrote: > > Saludos Jos?! > Could you please give a summary of the relevant parts of TPP > that might affect the use of R? I have looked up TPP on Wikipedia > without beginning to understand what it might imply for the use of R. > Best wishes, > Ted. > > On 04-Feb-2016 14:43:29 Jos?? Bustos wrote: >> Hi everyone, >> >> I have a question regarding the use R software under the new TPP laws >> adopted by some governments in the region. Who know how this new agreements >> will affect researchers and the R community? >> >> Hope some of you knows better and can give ideas about it. >> >> saludos, >> Jos??
Quite a while ago I went to talk (I think it may have been at an NZSA conference) given by the great Ross Ihaka. I forget the details but my vague recollection was that it involved a technique for automatic choice of some sort of smoothing parameter involved in a graphical display. Apparently Ross's ideas related peripherally to some patented technique owned by Texas Instruments, and TI was causing problems for Ross. He seemed to be of the opinion that the TPP would make matters worse. I suspect he's right. It will make matters worse for everyone except the rich bastards in the multinationals, in all respects. cheers, Rolf -- Technical Editor ANZJS Department of Statistics University of Auckland Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276 On 05/02/16 11:33, Marc Schwartz wrote:> Ted and Jos?, > > The FSF has a blog post here that might provide some insights: > > http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/time-to-act-on-tpp-is-now-rallies-against-tpp-in-washington-d-c-november-14-18 > > That is from last November, but the relevant passage, perhaps in a temporal vacuum, seems to be the second paragraph with the following sentences focused on the GPL: > > "The regulation would not affect freely licensed software, such as software under the GPL, that already comes with its own conditions ensuring users receive source code. Such licenses are grants of permission from the copyright holders on the work, who are not a "Party" to TPP." > > > The Software Freedom Conservancy has a post on this as well, from the same time frame: > > https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/09/gpl-tpp/ > > Regards, > > Marc > > >> On Feb 4, 2016, at 4:01 PM, Ted Harding <Ted.Harding at wlandres.net> wrote: >> >> Saludos Jos?! >> Could you please give a summary of the relevant parts of TPP >> that might affect the use of R? I have looked up TPP on Wikipedia >> without beginning to understand what it might imply for the use of R. >> Best wishes, >> Ted. >> >> On 04-Feb-2016 14:43:29 Jos?? Bustos wrote: >>> Hi everyone, >>> >>> I have a question regarding the use R software under the new TPP laws >>> adopted by some governments in the region. Who know how this new agreements >>> will affect researchers and the R community? >>> >>> Hope some of you knows better and can give ideas about it. >>> >>> saludos, >>> Jos??
It's not clear if the TPP would ever directly impact the R
project. However, it could impact many R users.
* For example, if someone decides that something you have
on the web includes material for which they claim copyright, the TPP
allows them to order your Internet Service Provider to take down your
web site. No court order is required. No proof is required. If you
want to contest, the dispute might go through the "Investor-State
Dispute Settlement" process, where the issue will be judged by people
essentially selected by multinational businesses. (Article 18, Section
J.) [Phillip Morris Tobacco Company has already sued Uruguay, Australia
and Norway over packaging requirements that has actually been effective
in reducing tobacco consumption in those countries. Former New York
City Mayor Bloomberg has been paying legal fees for Uruguay, because
they can't afford the legal fees. Tobacco is explicitly excluded from
the TPP, but similar suits could be brought over other types of products
or services.] This could include some algorithm you've coded into R, if
some company decides you're using their copyrighted algorithm or
whatever without paying for it. Current US copyright law covers
"derivative works", which could be almost anything. This sounds far
fetched. However, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
sued four college students for close to $100 billion, because their
improvements of search engines made it easier for people in a university
intranet to find copyrighted music placed by others in their "public"
folder. The attorney uncle of one of those four told his nephew that it
would cost him a million dollars to defend himself, and there would be
no way he could recoup that money even if he won. In negotiations, they
asked the student how much money he had. He said he had saved $12,000
for college. They took it. Major media organizations similarly sued
Venture Capitalists who funded Napster and Lawyers who advised MP3.com
that they had reasonable grounds to that MP3's business model was legal.
The Napster funders and MP3 lawyers similarly knew they could not
afford to defend themselves and settled. [Wikipedia, "Free Culture
(book)"; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)]
Other parts of the TPP are highly undemocratic but may not relate
as closely to R as the provision I just mentioned.
* The provision that worries me the most is Article 18.78
on ?Trade Secrets?. This broadly criminalizes ?unauthorized and willful
disclosure of a trade secret?. This doesn't sound bad, except that a
"trade secret" could include documentation of criminal behavior. This
substantially increases risks for journalists and whistleblowers. For
example The Guardian could be sued for having published documents
released by Ed Snowden -- even though what Snowden did was expose
perjury by James Clapper, US Director of National Intelligence.
(http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/132605875893/final-tpp-text-confirms-worst-fears-shadowy)
* Article 18.63 "forces the most draconian parts of the
U.S.?s broken copyright system on the rest of the world without
expanding protections for fair use and free speech. This section
requires countries to enforce copyright until 70 years after the
creator?s death. This will keep an enormous amount of information, art,
and creativity out of the public domain for decades longer than
necessary, and allow for governments to abuse copyright laws to censor
online content at will, since so much of it will be copyrighted for so
long."
(http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/132605875893/final-tpp-text-confirms-worst-fears-shadowy)
* The TPP could also make the Internet less secure. For
example, the Electronic Frontier Foundation says that, "With no good
rationale, the agreement would outlaw a country from adopting rules for
the sale of software that include mandatory code review or the release
of source code. This could inhibit countries from addressing pressing
information security problems, such as widespread and massive
vulnerability in closed-source home routers." (www.eff.org/issues/tpp)
I hope you find this interesting and useful even if some of it is
off topic.
Spencer Graves
On 2/4/2016 5:15 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:>
>
> Quite a while ago I went to talk (I think it may have been at an NZSA
> conference) given by the great Ross Ihaka. I forget the details but
> my vague recollection was that it involved a technique for automatic
> choice of some sort of smoothing parameter involved in a graphical
> display. Apparently Ross's ideas related peripherally to some patented
> technique owned by Texas Instruments, and TI was causing problems for
> Ross. He seemed to be of the opinion that the TPP would make matters
> worse.
>
> I suspect he's right. It will make matters worse for everyone except
> the rich bastards in the multinationals, in all respects.
>
> cheers,
>
> Rolf
>
> On Feb 4, 2016, at 3:15 PM, Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote: > > > > Quite a while ago I went to talk (I think it may have been at an NZSA conference) given by the great Ross Ihaka. I forget the details but my vague recollection was that it involved a technique for automatic choice of some sort of smoothing parameter involved in a graphical display.Identifying discontinuities: https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/Curves.pdf http://www.google.com/patents/US6704013 TI can now own analytic geometry if they file enough patents. -- David.> Apparently Ross's ideas related peripherally to some patented technique owned by Texas Instruments, and TI was causing problems for Ross. He seemed to be of the opinion that the TPP would make matters worse. > > I suspect he's right. It will make matters worse for everyone except the rich bastards in the multinationals, in all respects. > > cheers, > > Rolf > > -- > Technical Editor ANZJS > Department of Statistics > University of Auckland > Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276 > > On 05/02/16 11:33, Marc Schwartz wrote: >> Ted and Jos?, >> >> The FSF has a blog post here that might provide some insights: >> >> http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/time-to-act-on-tpp-is-now-rallies-against-tpp-in-washington-d-c-november-14-18 >> >> That is from last November, but the relevant passage, perhaps in a temporal vacuum, seems to be the second paragraph with the following sentences focused on the GPL: >> >> "The regulation would not affect freely licensed software, such as software under the GPL, that already comes with its own conditions ensuring users receive source code. Such licenses are grants of permission from the copyright holders on the work, who are not a "Party" to TPP." >> >> >> The Software Freedom Conservancy has a post on this as well, from the same time frame: >> >> https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/09/gpl-tpp/ >> >> Regards, >> >> Marc >> >> >>> On Feb 4, 2016, at 4:01 PM, Ted Harding <Ted.Harding at wlandres.net> wrote: >>> >>> Saludos Jos?! >>> Could you please give a summary of the relevant parts of TPP >>> that might affect the use of R? I have looked up TPP on Wikipedia >>> without beginning to understand what it might imply for the use of R. >>> Best wishes, >>> Ted. >>> >>> On 04-Feb-2016 14:43:29 Jos?? Bustos wrote: >>>> Hi everyone, >>>> >>>> I have a question regarding the use R software under the new TPP laws >>>> adopted by some governments in the region. Who know how this new agreements >>>> will affect researchers and the R community? >>>> >>>> Hope some of you knows better and can give ideas about it. >>>> >>>> saludos, >>>> Jos?? > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.David Winsemius Alameda, CA, USA