Article from Heise.de (German)


PDF of paper by Professor Gerald Spindler of the University of Goettingen (German)

The Federation of the German Software Industry has available on its site a white paper which analyzes some of the legal risks concerning the use of Free Software in Germany, from the standpoints of authors, users, and liability.

While this paper is not recommended reading unless your German is very good and you have the time and inclination to plough through it, we are including it as a resource and indication of perception.

If you're following this site at all, you might suspect that developing countries are eagerly embracing and promoting the concept and use of Free Software at personal, corporate, and government levels. In contrast, special interest groups in most industrial countries are busy throwing up roadblocks to further acceptance of the revolutionary concepts of Free Software in order to further their own short-term goals but at the expense of their societies.

From our perspective, inside a small developing country, this is just evidence of another drop of blood in the slow hemorrhage most industrialized countries seem bent on pursuing, which started with the export of their manufacturing base and now is extending to their intellectual capital as well. It really makes us wonder what the world will look like in twenty years.

- Willy Smith, reporting from Costa Rica