Developers in India say regulations hamstring the country's open source industry

Developers in India are fighting back against a new set of rules that they say will hinder the country's fast-growing open source industry. The government launched the new regulations in February to target major social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp, but critics say that their broadness will add an "undue burden" that could threaten the very existence of some open source projects. In 2019, India was the third-largest hub for open source work, following only the US and China, according to GitHub. But the new rules place "unreasonable" compliance standard's on the country's independent projects, an advisory board member of the Software Freedom Law Center in India, Anivar Aravind, told Insider. Here's why he and others are fighting against the new regulations:

The India government introduced the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules in February to supersede a similar set of rules released in 2011. Among other things, the rules require content moderation, a tracing requirement that says platforms must identify the originator of a message if they're ordered to, and that platforms appoint three officers: one to handle compliance, one for grievances, and one to work with law enforcement. Over 400 million people in India — of an estimated 450 million smartphone owners total — use WhatsApp, according to research firm Counterpoint. But misinformation on the app has had some deadly consequences. For example, dozens of people in India were killed by mobs in 2018 after rumors and edited videos circulated on WhatsApp about "child-lifters" kidnapping kids across the country. However, this new approach for curbing misinformation misses the mark and threatens other, unrelated projects and companies, legal director of the Software Freedom Law Center in New York, Mishi Choudhary, told Insider. Additionally, she argues that it violates India's constitutional rights, like the right to free speech, expression, and privacy. "My view right now is the government is trying to solve a problem of misinformation and disinformation and a general reigning-in of large American platform companies with very broad tools for which it doesn't even have jurisdiction," Choudhary said. The traceability and content moderation requirements could also threaten encryption: Messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp are protected by end-to-end encryption, which means that they can't parse the content of users' messages. Critics of the ruling say that if those companies are forced to comply with these standards, it could require breaking encryption. Open source developer Praveen Arimbrathodiyil, with support of the Software Freedom Law Center, filed a petition with the government to overturn the regulations, saying that they impose "unreasonable restrictions on the exercise of freedom of speech and expression and on the freedom to carry out an online business," as the Register's Simon Sharwood first reported. Arimbrathodiyil himself runs Poddery, an open source alternative to social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp, and told Insider that these rules could burden the community with huge financial costs. "We talked and decided to challenge these rules as we are directly affected," Arimbrathodiyil said. Right now, multiple other groups are also challenging these rules in court. Arimbrathodiyil's case is currently pending and no date is set for the hearing yet. The courts will likely hear the case some time after the courts reopen in mid-May, Choudhary said.

Many free and open source projects do not have the financial resources to comply with these new regulations, which could threaten their very existence and their ability to stay running, open source software developers and activists say. "The decision of this Court in the present case will have a significant effect on the rights and activities of the developers and users who make up the Free and Open Source movement as it poses an undue burden of compliance on volunteer communities," Arimbrathodiyil's petition reads. "Such compliance burdens the community with huge financial costs and the community does not have the financial wherewithal to comply with the impugned Rules." That financial burden could limit people's choices in India, Aravind said. "Who will comply with the law? People who can pay," Aravind said. Choudhary agreed: Some open source-based firms "would have no choice but to shut down the services," she said. It could also hamstring encrypted messaging apps like Signal, which is just starting to become popular in India. After WhatsApp announced in January that it would start sharing personal data with its parent company Facebook, Signal saw 7.5 million downloads, a 4,200% increase on the previous week, with India being the biggest source of downloads (2.3 million installs — more than 30% — came from India). "If you value privacy more than private expansion, you'll never implement traceability," Aravind told Insider. "Traceability is primarily against privacy rights." Some signers of the petition also fear that if India enacts these laws, it could set a precedent for similar regulations across the rest of the world. Many countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America will be watching which direction India takes with this, Choudhary says. It will also impact the markets certain companies choose to operate in, if they have to deal with complying with complex regulations. "The developers are rightly concerned that it may have an impact on how they participate and what kind of projects they are able to do," Choudhary said. "That's why they would like to challenge this and clarity around this."