Why Software = Politics: Enclosures of the software commons and the Internet invite abuses of power

[marmar]

from OnTheCommons.org:




Why Software = Politics
Enclosures of the software commons and the Internet invite abuses of power.

By David Bollier


As more of daily life moves to the Internet, the political implications of software design become more apparent. A case is point: the Russian government’s practice of seizing computers from various citizen advocacy groups because they allegedly contain “pirated” Microsoft software.

As reported in the New York Times, Russian security forces are “confiscating computers under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software.” The raids appear to be politically motivated because the most frequent targets seem to be groups like Baikal Environmental Wave, which is fighting pollution in Lake Baikal; Golos, an election monitoring group; the Foundation to Support Tolerance advocacy group; and a variety of dissident newspapers.

Raids and prosecutions occur even though groups can often verify that they purchased their software legally. But Microsoft doesn’t object to the political raids because it has too much of a stake in collaborating with the Russian government to fight pirated software.

It’s another case of collusion between the state and market against the commoners: Microsoft wants to stamp out pirated software and to curry favor with the Russian government to help it — and the Russian government is happy to use anti-piracy laws and Microsoft’s name as a pretext for quashing civil society activists.

The cynicism of this collusion is revealed when the commoners try to demonstrate the legality of their software, only to be rebuffed. For example, when the Baikal Wave advocacy group showed Microsoft its software receipts and other documentation, and asked the company to confirm to the Russian authorities that the software was entirely legal, Microsoft declined to do so. Presumably confirming the legality of the software because would anger the Russian government by calling into question the legitimacy of the raids. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/why-software-politics

[JCMach1]

1. Can't believe this story didn't get a rec yet! Stuff like this and RIM's collaboration

with the Saudi government are tantamount to a betrayal of trust.

[drm604]

2. I am not a big supporter of Microsoft

but the statement "Microsoft doesn’t object to the political raids because it has too much of a stake in collaborating with the Russian government to fight pirated software" doesn't seem to be true.

See this thread: Microsoft condemns use of anti-piracy laws to stifle dissent

Excerpts from statement from Brad Smith, Microsoft Senior Vice President and General Counsel:

To prevent non-government organizations from falling victim to nefarious actions taken in the guise of anti-piracy enforcement, Microsoft will create a new unilateral software license for NGOs that will ensure they have free, legal copies of our products ...

We’ll solve this problem by providing a unilateral NGO Software License that runs automatically from Microsoft to NGOs and covers the software ALREADY installed on their PCs. We’ll make this new, non-transferable license applicable to NGOs in a number of countries, including in Russia. We will also make it available to appropriate journalists’ organizations in order to include small newspapers and independent media. Because it’s automatic, they won’t need to take any steps to benefit from its terms.

..we’re creating in Russia a new NGO Legal Assistance Program focused specifically on helping NGOs document to the authorities that this new software license proves that they have legal software....

[hobbit709]

3. Run your computers on open source

Then tell them all to go jump in the lake.