Thursday, December 03, 2015

December 3, 2015
By Jeremy Malcolm

...Which brings us to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement (click here)
—which would prohibit such open source or code audit mandates being introduced in the future. Article 14.17 of the text of the Electronic Commerce chapter provides, “No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory.”

As indicated above, this isn't just an issue confined to routers and modems. It could also apply to medical devices, smoke alarms, drink mixers, motor vehicles such as cars and tractors, wearables, and not to mention a myriad of pure software applications running on smartphones and PCs. Only devices and software used in bespoke applications (not for a mass market) or in critical infrastructure would be exempt under the terms of the TPP language, though the precise ambit of these exemptions remains unclear....