[CREATE] Free as in Speech, and Vietnam?

[mrdocs]

On Wednesday 09 June 2010 17:04:12 Louis Desjardins wrote:
> 2010/6/9 Hong Phuc Dang <hp at gnome.asia>
> 
> > Dear all,
> > 
> > @Tor: thank you very much for raising the concern. I agree that
> > political part plays a very important role in any international
> > conferences.
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> One question has to be explicitely addressed here.
> 
> How a country deals with software patents is of great interest to
> developers. This is one big reason for quite a few developers to
> explicitely exclude the United States of America from being a host for
> LGM. Basically, people don’t want to get into judiciary issues while
> participating is such a conference.
> 
> We have to find out just how friendly (or how threatening) the LGM host
> country is to FLOSS in general and to FLOSS developers in particular.
> 
> Back in May 2007, we had a discussion on that issue in the Create Mailing
> List.
> 
> Here is an excerpt of one exchange between Alexandre Prokoudine and Dave
> Crossland.
> 
> [ AP ] giving proprietary guys even a tiny chance to sue one of
> 
> > our developers should never occur.
> 
> [ DC ] All developers in the USA are under constant threat of
> 
> > patent violation suits for all code they write. Developing free code
> > to read/write proprietary file formats has an additional risk of
> > breaking the 'technical protection measures' part of the DMCA.
> 
> Let’s feed that thread with all relevant information.
> 
> Louis

Excellent question.

From my knowledge, Vietnam does not abide by any of the patents related to 
software which are patented in the US. This needs more qualification, but I am 
certain it is "developer friendly".

I would like to add that as a "Westerner", I have had the chance to visit 
Vietnam in 2008 for nearly a month and never felt in any way threatened or 
surveilled by anyone. 

To the contrary, I found people there very friendly and the visa process 
straightforward and above board. While residents in Vietnam may not have the 
same kinds of freedoms we enjoy, one has the sense the government is trying to 
make the country accessible to outsiders and is looking to attract investment 
and qualified immigrants. For example, one can get a 1 year residency visa for 
business for $100 USD and relatively simple forms.

As a visitor, you should also be aware crimes against foreigners are punished 
severely, with penalties sometimes doubled when committed against foreigners.

My concerns are less political then practical, but also knowing thqt
FOSSASIA is a much larger scale event, then most of these can or have
been be solved.

Practical issues, with some comments from my experience:

Visas - Fairly straightforward for the visitor. In some cases, obtained
on the spot on arrival if there is a sponsoring organization recognized
by the government. Visas need to be paid in USD or VN Dong.

Travel - Vietnam is a long flight from both North America and Western
Europe. There are cost issues for sure.

Bandwidth - Internet access is not available everywhere in the same way
we are used to in NA and Western Europe. That said, in one hotel I
stayed in it was solid and usable - with no censoring or blocking. I
could always securely connect back home at will. Skype and ssh always worked.

Timing - Our usual May long weekend, is _not_ an ideal time to be there.
October or November are much preferred, as the climate is easier for
those of us not used to sub-tropic climate. I was there from October to
the middle of November and it was very pleasant.

While none of us are political scientists, I think it is safe to argue
we would be better off bringing our brand of "freedom" than not to an
area of the world where the values we cherish with respect to software
freedom and sharing of creative works will have, I am confident, a
receptive audience.

Moreover, it would be sad if we were to deny this opportunity of sharing in 
both directions - especially when we have a potential host, serious in their
dedication to the same ideals we have.

Just my 0.02.
Peter