Proprietary Software and Less-Developed Countries The way proprietary software is brought to market has deep and perverse consequences regarding the chances of growth for less developed countries. Current patent and copyright law in most countries, developed or not, allow authors to license the right of use of commercial software under very restrictive terms, which in effect prevent users and potential competitors from accessing the source code of the software they are using. This limitations produce various degrees of damage all over the world (witness the Microsoft antitrust trial), but for poor countries the consequences are devastating, as proprietary software effectively acts as an unsurmountable barrier to entry into the market, which gives them little chance of accessing the benefits of the IT revolution. The virtual monopoly that big corporations have established in the market has created very difficult conditions for poor countries to overcome the costs and serious setbacks that are inherent to proprietary software, and from developing any serious software industry beyond the export of labour. The simplest solution for this problem is the widespread adoption of free software.
We hope the data from this document will shed some light on these issues.