Software as a public good

Sri Llanka has declared September 5th-11th National Free and Open Source Software Week.

You may remember India's statement at last April's meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva:

"The primary rationale for Intellectual Property protection is, first and foremost, to promote societal development by encouraging technological innovation. ... The rationale ... is not that extraction of monopoly profits by the innovator is, of and in itself, good for society and so needs to be promoted. Rather, that properly controlled, such a monopoly, by providing an incentive for innovation, might produce sufficient benefits for society to compensate for the immediate loss to consumers as a result of the existence of a monopoly market instead of a competitive market."

"Neither intellectual property protection, nor the harmonization of intellectual property laws leading to higher protection standards in all countries irrespective of their level of development, can be an end in itself. ... Even though the intended beneficiary of IP protection is the public at large, the immediate beneficiaries are the IP rights holders, the vast majority if whom are in developed countries."

What's that noise? Could it be a movement afoot?