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Old January 5, 2016   #55
Fred Hempel
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Sunol, CA
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The OSSI pledge may be well-intentioned response to real problems in agriculture, but I would argue it is silly to think it does anything for OP breeders (other than freely providing them with material they can use to breed with, strictly for fun).

This is what is requested:

Through our Pledge, OSSI asks breeders and stewards of crop varieties to pledge to make their seeds available without restrictions on use, and to ask recipients of those seeds to make the same commitment.

How can a document calling on a breeder to immediately release all of their varieties with NO RESTRICTIONS protect a breeder? It does nothing to reward innovation of a breeder.

Frankly, it gives all power to seed producers and retailers who now have to pay nothing to the breeder. The retailers now have a nice story (Emancipated Seed!), but the breeder has been stripped of rights.

What other type of craftsman is bullied and shamed into releasing their workmanship for free?

Quote:
Originally Posted by bower View Post
Cole, have you read the OSSI pledge?
I don't have it in front of me, but I thought the wording was a bit ambiguous or difficult to understand without reading all the extra explanations, and there are questions as to whether it would be legally binding.
I think it works for the breeders who work professionally in the universitites, as a means of obtaining their employer's commitment not to sell the rights to the product in question to an exclusive corporate interest. So it is the verbal or written agreement of the employer that would stand up in court, not the pledge itself per se.
I don't know if it really offers any legal protection to independent breeders.

What do you think?
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