French Deputy Frederic Dutoit accused the government on Wednesday night of "signing the death warrant for open-source software" in France, as the debate in the National Assembly over a new copyright bill lurched towards a conclusion.

At issue was an amendment to the bill that tacked on a three-year prison sentence and a fine of Euro 300,000 (US$360,000) for publishing, distributing or inciting people to use software "manifestly intended to make protected works available to unauthorized persons." The protected works referred to include DVDs and some digital music files, the use of which is restricted by DRM (digital rights management) systems.

Supporters of open-source software -- including a number of deputies participating in the debate -- fear that the bill would make it illegal to develop something as innocent as a DVD player application for the Linux operating system, since an open-source implementation of the algorithm required to decrypt and play a DVD would necessarily also contain code useful to someone wishing to make copies of it.

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