Mozilla’s Response to the Indian Govt's Committee Report on Net Neutrality

<quote> As the Committee’s report discusses, a central pillar of net neutrality and a major contributing force to the Internet’s success has been the concept of “innovation without permission.” This concept, allowing anyone to develop a new technology, to write code and test in the public, and to control the code running on their machines is the lifeblood of the open Internet and the ethos of open source. As Mitchell wrote in regards to a similar proposal by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, any mandatory licensing scheme would prove onerous and “increase the costs of creating on the Web, thereby discouraging Indian entrepreneurs from building the next Internet giant. What’s more, establishing an enabling environment for development on the Web creates a virtuous cycle that provides more value to existing users and incentivizes new users to come online.” To this end, we respectfully caution you from proposing any licensing regimes on Internet services or Over-The-Top (OTT) applications, as doing so would only serve to create legal uncertainty, chill innovation, and hurt the promise of Digital India</quote>