The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) wants countries such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam to be placed on the US government's blacklist of copyright sinners for supporting open source software

That's the view of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a group of trade bodies that includes such notables as the Business Software Alliance, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)

The Open Source Initiative says the IIPA's recommendations for the US to use "Special 301" rules to blacklist countries for using open source are unjust and unbalanced

Open Source For America says that the IIPA's "Special 301" call against governments that support the use of open source is irresponsible and misleading in its portrayal of open source

A recent blog posting at The Guardian about the US "Special 301" rules has generated deep concern around the global open source community. It points to this year's recommendations from the controversially-named International Intellectual Property Alliance.

A powerful US lobby group is trying to have pro-open source countries listed as being "anti-capitalism". Open source software is anti-capitalism and undermines intellectual property.

MICROSOFT says it is under attack by open source. The company complained in its annual report that it was facing increasing pressure from open source companies. It claims they are stealing its ideas and benefiting from its intellectual property.

Beyond expressing a preference, does anything else need to be done to make sure that governments that say they are going "open source" really do so?" Quotas -- dictating specific percentages of open source usage -- seem an obvious answer, but in countries that have tried them, open source has not necessarily flourished. One country where quotas on open source use have been instituted is Hungary.

As open-source coding begins to appear with increasing regularity in commercial software products, government users need to be aware of the potential security vulnerabilities in open-source code, industry experts say.