Senator Kate Lundy hosted a pre-2020 Summit event in Canberra last week

to generate ideas on how open source technology, open standards and open

access to information might transform the way government departments and

the business world operate.

Senator Lundy, a former Shadow Minister for IT, said she'd elected to

focus on open source as the biggest potential game changer across the

portfolios she's involved in.

“I had a look at all the big public policy issues that I think have the

most capability to change the way we do things for the better, and open

source was the standout for me. I’m involved in a lot of different

policy areas ranging from sport and health promotion, right through to

things relating to IT, but this one has the greatest potential because

it’s a different way of solving problems, and it’s a way that I think

can help organisations capitalise on corporate knowledge and share that

knowledge.”

The event brought academics, lawyers and IT industry representatives

together with senior public servants to discuss how open source

technology is being used in government and the private sector, and how

open standards and free access to information can be used to ensure

public access to information.

Several participants at the summit warned that legal reform is needed

around intellectual property law. Senior software developer and open

source community figure Dr Andrew Tridgell warned that innovation in IT

risks being nobbled due to a patent law framework which can't

accommodate similar ideas being developed independently.

"The key issue that needs to be solved is independent invention. IP

doesn't cope with the commonly occurring 'idea whose time has come' -

the patent system considers that a crime," Tridgell said.

The Deputy Vice Chancellor of ANU, Professor Lawrence Cram, warned that

the Australian public is losing access to university research done in

tandem with industry due to a legal framework which is failing to

protect open access to information.

Professor Cram alluded to three separate incidents at ANU which had

raised problems of access to research. He said that in the most recent

case, ANU researchers will lose access to research data they'd developed

with an industry partner which had decided mid-way through the project

to protect it as a trade secret.

"We need to be very careful and very thorough at looking at adverse

consequences of legislation on openness and at the conditions which are

attached to funding regimes," he said.

Cram, the former executive director of the Australian Research Council,

said the disappearance of university research into private hands flies

against the obligation of universities to communicate the findings of

their research to the public, and ensure the public can benefit from

that research.

Cram said that ANU is on track to complete the "very difficult" task of

moving to publish its academic research results in the open commons, to

allow free access to that information.

"This is an excellent outcome for our researchers and the community," he

said.

Senator Lundy said the ideas and proposals raised at the Foundations of

Open Event would be fed into Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit

later this month and to the relevant portfolio holders in the Rudd

government.