Editorial proposal for the draft of the bill (V6) by the Free Path Foundation (Fundación Vía Libre)
DEFINITIONS
Article 1.- For the present law, the following terms are defined:
a) Program or "software" is any instruction secuence used by a processing device to carry out a specific task or solve a particular problem.
b) User is any person (real or juridical) who uses the software.
c) Source code, or source program, is the complete set of original instruction and digital files created and/or modified by the programmer, and all digital support files as data tables, images, specifications, documentation, and every other element needed to produce the executable program from them.
As an exception, this set can exclude those tools and programs usually distributed as free software by other means, as compilers, operating systems, and libraries.
d) Free program (software) is any which use gives the user, without an additional price, the following rights:
d.1) unrestricted execution of the program for any purpose.
d.2) unrestricted access to its source code
d.3) exhaustive inspection of all internal operating mechanisms of the program.
d.4) use of these internal mechanisms and any arbitrary part of the program, for adapting it to user needs.
d.5) production and public distribution of copies of the program
d.6) modification of the program and free redistribution of these modifications and of the resulting program under under the same conditions of the original program.
Besides these rights, the cost for obtaining a copy of the program source code can not be significatively higher than the usual market cost for materials, work and logistic required for making that copy.
e) "non-free" or "propietary" program is any which doesn't satisfies the requirements stated in the preceding article 1 section d).
f) Open data format is any digital information coding method that satisfies the following conditions:
f.1) Its technical documentation is publicly available.
f.2) The source code for at least one complete reference implementation is publicly available.
f.3) There are no restrictions for writing programs that store, transmit, receive or access to data codified in this way.
RANGE OF APPLICATION
Article 2.- The Executive, Legislative and Judicial Powers, decentralized organizations and companies where the National State is a majoritary stockholder, will use for their systems and IT equipment only free programs (software).
Article 3.- The Application Authority for this law will be the Secretary of Public Function of the National Executive Power.
EXCEPTIONS
Article 4.- If there is no free software solution that satisfies a specific need, state organizations mentioned in article 2 will be able to adopt one of the following choices, in decreasing order of priority:
a) If there is no non-free software solution that satisfies the specific need and, consequentially, the decision to develop a solution is made, the resulting solution must in all cases be free software, as defined in article 1 of this law.
b) If there are verifiable time constraints to satisfy the need, and there is a non-free solution available, the organization requiring it can request from the Application authority a temporary authorization for non-free software use. The selection criteria will be made with the next preference order:
b.1) Programs satisfying all the criteria mentioned in article 1, section d, except for the right to distribute modified copies of the program.
b.2) Programs for which there exists a compatible free software project in advanced stage of development that can replace it.
b.3) Other programs.
Only in case b.1) the authorization can be permanent. In case b.2) the permisssion will be void automatically whenever the free replacement is available and has the functionality to satisfy the specific need. In the other case, the authorization will periodically turn void in a term of no more than two years, and will be reissued only after checking that there are no free-software solutions yet.
The authorization will be granted only if the requiring state organization warrants data storage in open data formats.
Artículo 5º.- National Public Universities and other educational entities depending on the National State will also be allowed to request an authorization for use of non-free software to be used in research, as long as the research objective is directly associated to the non-free program requested.
PUBLICITY OF EXCEPTIONS
Article 6.- The exceptions authorized by the Application Authority must be fundamented and published by the means designed by the regulation. Those fundaments must include the concrete functionality requirements that must be satisfied by the program.
Article 7.- If any state organization specified in article 2 is authorized to acquire or use non-free software or programs to store or process data of privacy or security critical for the State, the Application Authority must also publish, by the means designed by the regulation, a report explaining the risks associated to non-free software use in that area.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Article 8.- The highest administrative authority and the highest technical authority of each organization covered by the range of this law will be jointly responsible for carrying out this law.
TRANSITION TERMS
Article 9.- The Executive Power will rule in a term of a hundred and eighty days the conditions, dates, and ways for the transition of the present situation to one satisfying the conditions of the present law, and will turn in that direction future bids and contracts for computer software.
Article 10.- The Provincial and City governments, and the Autonomous Government of the City of Buenos Aires are invited to join this initiative.
Article 11.- Comunicate this to the National Executive Power
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Translation by:
Daniel F Moisset,
May 31st, 2001
Last modified: Monday, 10-Nov-2003 22:01:25 ART |