Hacker in Law (blogger bablaw) has posted an open letter to the President in defense of the freedom of technical standards and regulations

LiveJournal has a blog called bablaw , whose author also calls himself the pseudonym Hacker in Law. This is one of the most cited LiveJournal bloggers on Habrahabr; Yes, I myself referred to it yesterday.

And yesterday, this blogger posted an open letter addressed to President Medvedev. I must note that, like any such letter that is written from a lawyer to a lawyer, it is replete with legal vocabulary; perhaps, for Habrakhabr’s readers, the retelling of the essence of the matter , compiled by Nesterovich, will be much clearer.

What we see in essence? - we are trying to Rostechregulirovanie (former Gosstandard) to transfer state technical regulations from the field of public domain to the field of intellectual property of individual organizations (perhaps even foreign ones). Those taxpayers' funds for which the creators of the GOSTs existed and for which bold shish turned out to be in public ownership are not just poherovatsya; moreover, now ordinary people are threatened by a new danger, for example, living in such houses and flying in such airplanes, which are built according to outdated "pirated" copies of standards and regulations, and not even with disdain for them.
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Attempt this is not new; however, last time (as Nesterovich indicates) state standardizers lost the case when representatives of a St. Petersburg non-profit organization (Institute for the Development of Information Freedom) filed a lawsuit against them. Nevertheless, the court decision on the free publication of the GOSTs on the Internet was not executed, and the director of the IHRI was even attacked by unknown persons at his own entrance, ending with a head injury. Now a new attempt is being made to seize the standards, under the aegis of President Medvedev personally.

The fourth part of the Civil Code abused much and deservedly, but still it contained article 1259 , according to which official documents of state bodies, official documents of international organizations, as well as their official translations are not subject to copyright (and, therefore, cannot be such a subject licensing agreements with foreign owners, as their new bill does). Now it’s not enough that some of the legislation will, as a result of all this, be available to citizens only for money; apparently, the road will open to increase this part. But the transfer of the text of the laws to the requesting paws of right-handers (especially international ones) should be just as forbidden as the incorporation of the Ministry of Finance or the anti-drug service, for example.

Events unfold very quickly: the draft law on grabbing GOSTs had passed the first reading in the State Duma, and last night (in emergency mode, after work hours), it was recommended by the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship to be submitted to the State Duma Council. Today, the Council of the Duma will decide to recommend this bill for adoption, and tomorrow (December 23) it will vote in the second and third reading immediately by a majority vote. This once again proves how actively, how obediently, how promptly the Duma serves as the legislative stamp of the will of the President.

The open letter, therefore, calls for Medvedev to reconsider his decision and to shorten the traders. Not indifferent citizens have already placed on the blog to Medvedev the mention of an open letter; I believe that it is interesting to bring this story to the main page of Habrahabr.

Here is a public struggle for their rights, here is a truly civil society.