Janet Haven

In Kiev today, and I spent an interesting hour with three of the leaders of UAFOSS (Ukrainian Free and Open Source Software). They're involved in the now-familiar struggle to acquaint people with open source software, to convince the government to adopt it (or at least consider it in what are widely thought to be corrupt tendering processes), to encourage use in schools, libraries, and businesses. What's slightly unusual, according to my companions this afternoon, is that there are still laws on the books in Ukraine, holdovers from the still-looming Soviet days, which render use and production of open source software illegal. Apparently, a software developer needs to be able to show that he has been paid for the production of software that he has developed, and a user needs to be able to display a license agreement from a vendor licensed by the state. This would mean that, technically speaking, downloading and installing Firefox or Open Office is a crime in Ukraine, and contributing to an international project would also be out of bounds. A note on accuracy: I've googled this up and down and can't come up with anything concrete because, I suspect, I don't read Ukrainian, but have been assured by numerous Ukrainian colleagues that this is indeed the case. UAFOSS dedicates a significant amount of effort to having this law changed, although the somewhat regular collapse of the Ukrainian government (and the fact that there has only been a caretaker government here since January) has slowed their lobbying efforts considerably.

So far as I can tell, this law is totally obscure and widely ignored. A Google search will turn up a lively open source community in Ukraine, and after narrating the above story today, the UAFOSS guys went on to talk about all the open source work they *are* doing in Kiev, including an exciting-sounding localization project that involves the Ukraine's national language office and an effort to set up a network of help-desk centers around the country. Still, I can certainly understand why UAFOSS are working to change the law. Unfortuantely, unenforced and outdated laws languishing on the books can come back to bite at a later date if they're not cleared off. Further, forcing a discussion on open source licensing could help to break open other discussions on intellectual property issues that still tie the hands of other industries in Ukraine.