IGF 2019 WS #223 Free/Open Source and the impact of Internet Legislation

Relevance to Theme: Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is one of the pillars of the Internet. FOSS that ensures that the Internet remains free, open, and inclusive. It not only provides implementations of open standards of Internet protocols, but it also provides a model of decentralized peer-production, distribution, use and maintenance of software in an ethical and inclusive manner. Finally, FOSS is an enabler of impactful, distributed, inclusive innovation in software--a key factor in the evolution of technology.

Almost all the key software that is used on the Internet are licensed as FOSS. FOSS enables communities, business and governments to extend, localize and internationalize existing software for specific communities and redistribute such software. This way, FOSS ensures that the Internet itself is inclusive and open, particularly in the context of user communities that are powerless in the face of giant software monopolies so characteristic of the early 2000s.

While FOSS has become mainstream in the last decade with widespread adoption by civil society, Governments and industry (with IT giants who were significantly anti-FOSS crossing over to becoming FOSS users and suppliers), a new threat has arrived in the form of "Internet" legislation such as GDPR and the EU Copyright Law. There is significant concern that some of the elements of these legislations will make fundamental aspects of FOSS--such as free sharing of code--illegal.

While much of the new legislation has originated in Europe, the issue has a global impact as many countries are looking to Europe for inspiration for their own national laws, and are likely to follow with similar laws. There is a distinct possibility that a number of such laws--mostly lacking harmony--will deeply and adversely impact the current model of Free/Open Source Software. (However, despite this general sense of foreboding, it is unclear what the precise impacts of these legislations--both short-term and long-term--would be).

This session will bring together FOSS developers & practitioners, end-users, businesses, researchers lawyers, and Governments to highlight and identify--as precisely as possible-the different ways that the current momentum of FOSS may be impaired on account of these laws, and to identify the ways by which these risks may be mitigated.

Relevance to Internet Governance: Compared to a decade ago, FOSS is now mainstream, and already involve the IT industry and governments, in addition to its traditional stakeholders (FOSS Developers, end-user communities, researchers, and activists). Any adverse impact on FOSS will have far-reaching consequences to the Internet and accordingly, the stakeholders of the Internet--under the Multistakeholder model--have to take cognizance of these probably impacts and recommend ways to minimize them. As such, there is a strong Governance component to the issue.