[Itpolicy-np] Copyright, Piracy and Open Source

Sat Sep 18 05:16:47 GMT 2010

I think we definitely want to see our country having higher respects for the intellectual property of people, be it Nepalese or of foreign nationals. Once the rights of the creators are secured, then the IPR owners can decide how they would like to exercise these rights... whether to contract it out to someone as most of our singers, bands, artists have done; to use it for commercial purposes as quite a few of the software creators have done and to exercise these rights and to provide the software source codes as well so that people can use it for various purposes.

On the music front, I was informed in a meeting that we had in our office yesterday with the Registrar of Nepal Copyright Registrar's Office and officials of High Level Commission for Information Technology of Nepal Government that with the establishment of the royalty collection society and with the funds coming from only the CRBT royalty, in less than one year the amount has been a whopping 4 crores. It is good to see that Music Nepal is now selling singles online for slightly over NPR 10.  All good signs that we are in the right direction for ensuring that the intellectual property of our creators be protected and respected.

Having been working on the Microsoft platform for my entire professional life and been involved with the company in various relationships for the past 18 years, I am happy to say that over the years it has evolved to ensure that today we are actively participating in open source (http://www.microsoft.com/opensource ) and share the common industry view that software users will continue to see a mixed IT environment of open source and proprietary products for years to come. We also understand that open source software alternatives can represent healthy competition and an opportunity to complement or enhance Microsoft technologies and products.

Microsoft recognizes the value of openness to working with others (including open source communities) to help customers and partners succeed in today's heterogeneous IT environments. This includes increasing opportunities for business partners regardless of their underlying development model and increasing opportunities for developers to learn and create by combining community-oriented open source with traditional commercial approaches to software development.

One of the biggest repository of open source source-codes has started to become the codeplex.com foundation, supported by Microsoft.

Early this year, we had the opportunity to host a professor from St Xavier's College in our event in China to share our knowledge on how the source codes of Windows and windows server can be used in the teaching environment of kernel development and later we also provided the proceedings of this event along with the source codes and teaching methods to other interested faculty of 37 engineering colleges in Nepal.

As a part of the delivery of the agreement that we had signed with Nepal Government last year, we have provided our entire software stack to 15,865 Nepalese students last year totally free of all charges and we hope to grow that number to over 30,000 students this year as we continue our engagements with the academic sector.

As part of our investments in Nepal, we continue to localize a lot of our products and technologies in Nepali language.  We will be launching Windows 7 Nepali version on September 21, 2010 and will be providing free downloads from our portal.

Office 2010 in Nepali is on its way, along with a host of other products and technologies but not limited to Live Essentials, Bing bar, Microsoft Securities Essential, Windows Phone, etc.

In this pursuit of higher respect for intellectual property, I think we have also been able to create 'ordinary people delivering extraordinary results'.  Quite a few of the people in the industry today had their first job or break with relations to me, which makes me satisfied to think that I have had a small role to play in ensuring that the actors in the knowledge industry are more knowledgeable in the various aspects of IPR.

We value highly to interoperability to ensure that the Windows platform is a choice of platform for our users and customers to be able to inter-operate with any other platforms or technologies as well. Today PHP apps natively run on the Windows servers and most of the Linux commands can be run on the latest version of Windows Server.

Every year we have over 5,000 people being certified on the Microsoft products and technologies in Nepal since they believe that a career either in Nepal or in the global marketplace demand that they are able to demonstrate their skills on Microsoft platforms thru these certifications.

We are also ensuring that PC Essentials get bundled with new machines in Nepal when they get sold out so that Windows 7 and Office 2010 would get bundled with a host of other software, so that the end consumer DOES NOT have to pay anything extra for it, along with a security solution like Microsoft Securities Essentials.  This way new computer users do not have to worry about violating other's intellectual property and can start using genuine and legal products at the same time vendors do not have to break any Nepalese law to ensure that they create higher value for their software.

When our country has demonstrated that we are able to protect intellectual property, will we be able to ensure that foreign multi-nations will open up shop here ensuring that more benefits to our economy.  We have also heard multiple stories in the past when contact details of campaigns from call centers been 'stolen' by customer service agents as part of the parting blues.  Again, when such 'thefts' start to happen, the industry by and large suffer.

The people have a clear choice, to use certain open source products or to use proprietary products.  But this does not leave any excuse NOT TO RESPECT others intellectual property rights. Whichever solutions can show better value to the user in terms of usage, investments, return on investments, security, ease of usage, support and a total ecosystem on the product, will definitely win the hearts of the users, no doubt about that.

I am sure that this email is going to start a debate, which is not the purpose.

Regards,
Allen.

From: itpolicy-np-bounces at lahai.com [mailto:itpolicy-np-bounces at lahai.com] On Behalf Of Hempal Shrestha
Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 10:20 AM
To: Discussion List for Nepal's IT/Telecom Policies
Cc: foss-nepal; ISOC Nepal main Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Itpolicy-np] Copyright, Piracy and Open Source

Dear Indiver, Bipin and All,

Happy Software Freedom Day 2010 !!!

Sadly the issues that we had been talking about from FOSS Nepal community for years has now started taking a monster shape. Not sure, who and where to blame. But my first accusation will go to the resource available in the country. May it be human resource, financial resource, social resource and /or knowledge/information resources.

Its not about only "Murky Water" but its about how we want to take our country ahead. A nation is strong if and only if its citizen are strong. FOSS is about a dream where the information/knowledge is free (freedom) for all.

Happy FOSSing.

Best Regards,m

Hempal Shrestha
Chitwan, Nepal
Mobile No : 977-98510-77031
On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 8:03 AM, Bipin Gautam <bipin.gautam at gmail.com<mailto:bipin.gautam at gmail.com>> wrote:
> I am surprised that they are still selling proudly while a couple of guys
> are targeted and put behind bars.
>
This is sad!

But, police "have to act" when a complain is registered and police
works with "reasonable evidence". Maybe, Nepal Police is flexing its
muscles... ;)

But, from some sources i also know, the "couple of guys" have
seriously offended some very "important people" in the past
(knowingly/unknowingly). Maybe, a destiny was "written"... if the
cases are related? Time will tell.

For OSS lovers, there is Ylmf OS 3.0, something that feels likes
windows but actually linux/ubuntu. http://ylmf.org/en/index.html

Also, we are launching NepSecure website and i have just outlined some
topics in the wiki that may be of some interest to you all. Please
feel free to contribute or start a new page.
http://wiki.nepsecure.com/Main_Page

Sooner than latter..... i think "rules of engagement", on issues
related to Nepalese cyberspace should be be written so that it is
win-win for Police, ISPs and the general public. Time has come, things
cant be avoided now so it is far better to work out on a clear,
acceptable ground that is beneficial for all through paper work. That
is a "common defense" for us all.

Last time i talked with a (few) legal experts who "claim" to
"specialize" in cyberspace (but zero on the technical) They find
"murky water" as cash opportunity, a source of power!

Therefore, I firmly believe, people who take limited benefit from
"small opportunity" should be taken out with uncompromising ph0rce.

Distinguished members, without comments.........

with best regards,
-bipin

Ps: check this following news:
Russina government is using Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts as a
"tool" to crack down on critics of the government!

http://www.dailytech.com/Microsofts+Antipiracy+Raids+Help+Russian+Government+Crack+Down+on+Critics/article19601.htm
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--
Best Regards,

Hempal Shrestha
Kathmandu, Nepal
Mobile No : 977-98510-77031

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