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Freedom of Speech in Software
akpoff writes " I've been struggling with the question 'what's wrong with software patents' but haven't been able to find the right words. I was over at John Gilmore's website and found a link to John Salin's 'Freedom of Speech in Software' letter to the USPTO back in 1991! This is one of the best explanations I've seen. He reminds us that computer programs are essentially like literature or music -- they are expressions of ideas. Just because they run on a computer doesn't make them uniquely different from other creative mediums. We should think player piano (patentable) vs the music (copyrightable but not patentable) it plays. Europeans -- put this letter into the hands of your MEPs!"
What! it has been going on for so long???
Perhaps Pianola (computer) vs the music encoded on script it plays from (software)?
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
That's like saying field, but not household, slaves need to be freed. All patents need to be abolished. And they will.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
what a refreshingly elegant way of getting the point accros (piano vs music)! I have this very minute emailed the article to my MEP!
... do we really want to encourage a bunch of code that is a blatant rip-off of existing ideas, just re-implemented? Perhaps a balance needs to be sought in short-lived patents. That was the original concept, IIRC... except the crusty old lawmakers who came up with it didn't realize how the rate of change in technology and ideas would increase.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
You can copyright a song.. but can you copyright the ideas behind how you made that song... I mean it's your idea etc but the basics of music aren't copyrightable. So why should we give people the right to own the ideas behind making software.
It's what's wrong with patents in general. Quite simply: There are natural rights, and there are granted rights. Your natural rights include such things as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of travel, right to property, and so on.
The natural rights are things that can be released to some extent by a person, but cannot be taken away. Therefore, as a government attempts to take these rights away, it drives anarchy, crime, and disorder, eventually resulting in the fall of the government.
Your granted rights include such things as welfare, right to a single national language (nationalism), right not to compete against foreign labor, right to a monopoly, (as in Spain) right to tax funds for your family title and property, and so on. Patents and copyrights fall into the latter class. They are granted rights.
The granted rights are those things that make it easier to live, especially when people are not good to each other on their own. You break your leg, and didn't have insurance, and can't work, and haven't been paid justly for your labor in the past, so you have no assets? Well, we will make others pay for you.
The problem is that every granted right that is given to one person requires the government to attempt to deprive another person of their natural rights. So the more granted rights you have, the more unstable your government is. A sign of this is that your economy will be bad, the unofficial (criminal) economy will be larger, and violent crime will be greater, as well.
Where your balance point between natural and granted rights is, is a balance that is forced by people not dealing with each other rightly. But there is another factor, as well: when those with power just want benefits, and have the ability to take them by controlling the law. When this happens, though, the government is not going to last long.
Unfortunately, I'm seeing this happen in the EU, so I don't expect the union to last. But if I am correct, it also means that no argument you use will work. So by all means, try your own. But if you want, present this to them as well. Maybe it'll wake someone up, but I doubt it.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
No.
Did any one read the parent's post as "I'm a fucking moron and this is all I have to say?"
The real problem with software patents is that the field is too young to support them. It's as though people were able to take out patents on "the wheel" and "fire". The patent office has completely abdicated its responsibilities as well and allows too many patents that are obvious to any competent practitioner. Ideas no longer have to be reduced to practice (i.e. implemented) which allows for a vast number of frivolous patents to be filed for.
It's unlikely that we'll be able to get rid of software patents entirely, but perhaps some changes could be made that would make the world better for us all. A peer review panel to reject obvious patents would be a good start along with some changes outlawing overly broad patents.
Because, in the software industry the history has shown (especially via Microsoft) the first winner takes it all, leaving that winner with disproportionate advantages versus any competing idea.
OK, the "programs are writing" makes complete sense, and I woud think that when distributing source only, the only worry would be infringing on copyrights, but if a program is compiled, it's no longer writing. It becomes a tool, and patents are there specifically for that (think of tools that come in the form of machines).
So isn't this whole "software patents" thing actually good for OSS, in that it will only make it harder to distribute proprietary software in its compiled form?
Finally the contradictions inherent in capitalism are coming home to hit the rich people, i love it!
Oh boohoo my job went to India, oh boohoo software patents ruined my small business, boohoo some paid off politician banned my program, blah blah fucking blah...
I mean hey everyone likes capitalism right? Then I have no sympathy for you when it finally crushes you and turnes you into an alienated little being in a cube living life vicariously through the media corporations.
I love it.
I just can't wait till the next world war, with the proliferation of nukes that is gonna be fun!
Here is a paper discussing the idea that computer code is a form of speech.
This article suggests that free speech might not be the prime issue from a MEP's point of view.
http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
Although I would really prefer to not have software patents, I don't think that the case against them is so clear cut. There are many terrible software patents--vague, obvious, trivial, overly broad, and so on. But there are also software patents that are specific, novel, useful, innovative, implementable. And it is possible that software patents benefit us in a couple of ways.
First, companies are encouraged to publish details of their inventions that otherwise would have been held as trade secrets. In the database management world, most of the innovations have been made in industry, and before software was patentable most details were kept secret. For example, David Lomet tells me that Tandem held as secret the "repeating history" recovery scheme that was later re-invented by Mohan and published as part of IBM's ARIES system (parts of which were patented.). See ARIES for details of that system and links to good patents.
If it weren't for software patents, it's doubtful that IBM would have published such details.
Lomet himself has a couple of dozen patents. Of the ones I've looked at, they are all high quality patents. On the question of patents encouraging innovation, he says:
I'm not sure that this effect is as significant, and the ill effects of all the low-quality software patents may outweigh the benefits, but I think it's important to admit that there are some good effects.
Yes. Twice.
Just because code is text and literature is text doesn't make the two equivalent. Using this code is art principal, you could take a piece of hardware and take the mechanical drawings used in the design of the hardware and declare those to be art and whine about those patents too.
I'll agree that software patents are freaking stupid but come up with a better argument than code is a form of art. I don't know who the hell came up with this concept but I've heard it long before all the ad agency artsy folks broke into the "software business" when they got their first copy of Dreamweaver or Hotmetal.
'Same speed C but faster'
Talk about things like the Amazon one-click patent, I'm sure a quick search here will turn up plenty of examples of absurd patents.
THOSE are the kind of arguments politicians understand.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Count me in.
Me too. Every parent is a moron commenting on the parent being a moron. I hereby include myself and bring this to an end.
Hmmz.. i do want to say something to our representatives.. but how? and who is it? pfffrrrttt..
http://www.virtualconcepts.nl/
Well. That was a tad anti-socialistic.
RMS is God and Salin is His prophet.
You can order them by country / fraction on http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep5/owa/p_meps2.repar tition. If there is no e-mail addy listed, try their personal webpage, there's bound to be some sort of contact form.
What needs to be changed:
- The length of software patents needs to be severely reduced, perhaps to 7 years or so. The IT industry moves too quickly.
- Patents should not be granted for overly broad or trivial ideas. I would say pretty well all software patents are trivial.
- The patent office has no incentive to reject patents. They should be held liable, and penalised, for incorrectly granted patents.
- Patents should be open to the public for peer review, since clearly the patent office is not capable of distinguishing an ingenious idea from a trivial one.
Article 5 of the proposal says:
and this is explained on page 15: And on the bottom of page 7, it says The way I interpret this is that "free speech" objections to the proposal are effectively countered. The proposal denies patents on algorithms and on software 'as such'.In other words, your rights to write and publish software are not affected (free speech), but you are not allowed to run any software that allegedly contains patented technology, without paying for a license!
I think the only useful (and powerful) objections to the directive are economic ones. Patents as allowed by this directive stifle innovation rather than promoting it, and can easily be abused for anti-competitive purposes. The directive allows over-broad patents that pose a risk to the software industry (although the "explanatory memorandum" sounds very reasonable, the actual articles of the directive provide hardly any limitation to the scope of software patents or guarantees that they are not too easily granted).
For example, the broader version of the "Amazon one-click patent" that was recently granted by the EPO, would be allowed by this directive.
In the long run, the negative effect on innovation would not even benefit the big software companies (who initially may profit from software patents as anti-competitive tools). It will only be profitable to a small group of patent lawyers (at the EPO) and a number of patent sharks, at the cost of the European citizen.
Read the proposed directive for yourself and shudder:
chortle if you whaaNT to. have you herd wad this "fat boy's" going through?
well first, there's home detention, which probably has left him heartbroken & hungry
next, no computing. that should solve most of the wwworld's saykrud kode infection 'problems'.
if that's not bad enough, imagine what he's going to do with all of his spare time, until he goes to/on 'fat boy' prison/probation? he'll likely just have to weight&weight.
(I haven't figured out yet how to correctly post an URL on /. )
Once again comes from the FSF's Richard Stallman. .
People interested in software patents should definitily read this and this
It's a bit sad seeing how often RMS is right and how much abuse he gets from people who can find nothing else to criticize than his style.
Yes people, he is very blunt and unbending but that's okay because he is right!
So are viruses protected under this free speech? Or are we excluding those now?
I wrote a 10-page paper this summer for my ENG102 class on the topic of software patents. Mostly historical information, but the works cited list is what I consider impressive. It's a first draft, with professional recommendations left out (note to self: procrastinate less).
The link is at:
http://emvis.net/~sean/school/eng102/swpat.html
Enjoy.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
And unfortunately your MEP almost certainly will not read your email because like all MEPs they get far too many emails every day to bother reading them all. If, however, you took the time to visit your MEP and discuss the article face-to-face that would probably have much greater impact.
So why isn't building pianos freedom of speech also then?
There, of course, is no reason that you shouldn't be allowed to make money of your invention. The real problem is the anti-competitive nature of the software patent. IBM holds a patent on a "list of words connected to business objects" which is basically every application including Excel, Word's "Font"-list or your browser's location bar.
Adobe has a patent on "floating palettes" for their toolbars. Macromedia has a patent on tabs.
If there was a consensus on how these patents would be handled, I could imagine a software patent law so inventions like RSA can be protected, but the way it is now, we make big software companies follow the RIAA's footsteps.
Imagine your a shareware developer and have a new and cool application. You make money of it, but suddenly Adobe can't sell its special Photoshop filter package anymore, because you do everything for $39.99. Suddenly, Adobe comes along and sues you, because they have a patent on buttons with grey borders. Even if they don't win, you're so broke you can't afford bread.
Imagine your a independant developer. You have a great new encryption algorithm and patent it. So you obiously have to publish it. It gets scrutinized by the cryptographic community and is found secure and ultra-fast. IBM implements it as part of its new java-crypto-webservice-thingy. You sue, because the patent grants you the right to license payments. Thing is... you have to sue in Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Luxenburg, the Swiss, Spain... you get the idea. IBM eventually settles to patent your idea in the US. Suddenly you're so broke, you can't afford bread.
Anyone remember the american inventor of the "Sony" walkman? No? well, I thought so. He's so broke he can't afford bread. Sony's still making billions of his patent, which he couldn't enforce.
This system is so broken, there is no way you can fix it gradually. We're better off without allowing software patents for the moment. Really.
But the biggest joke hasn't been mentioned yet. The initiative comes from the UK and might work with the UK's laws. In Germany, if you are the managing director of a company with limited liability (AG or GmbH), you're not allowed to knowingly engage in any illegal activity. If you do so, you loose the protection of the law and therefor can be hold liable with everything you own. The problem: knowingly infringing on a patent is illegal in Germany. Therefor, if IBM sends me a cease and desist letter, claiming that I MIGHT infringe on one of their 3600 patents from last year, I must immediatly stop selling all potentially infringing products. If I don't do that, I might loose all my private belongings to satisfy IBM's damage claims... even though I have a registered company with "limited liability"...talk about anti-competitive.
The author states, "Computer Programs are Writings." He compares computer programs to written essays. I believe that both his statement and comparision are generally incorrect.
Yes, there may some cases where this is so, such as might be entries in the "obfuscated C code contest". But this is very seldom what we are speaking of when we talk about "computer programs".
More so than it is similar to an essay, the computer program is similar to the collection of specific gears, sprockets, pins, and their particular arrangements which cause a machine to work in a useful and well-defined way. These parts, similarly, like components of computer programs, have yet more primitive components and specifications which provide for those at the higher level.
Perhaps a more useful example due to its comparative complexity is a clock.
That the analogy of gears, pins, sprokets and their arrangement, to software and the computer on which it runs, is successful, is illustrated by the case of the swapped watch internals.
Suppose that we have an existing mechanical clock. Now, suppose we take a duplicate watch casing, but inside we insert a "general purpose gear, ping, and sproket emulator". Like the computer, this device, in order to function in a useful manner, requires a set of instructions. Specifically, these instructions must instruct the emulator how to perform operations with equivalent results to those that were in our existing clock performed by real, rather than emulated gears, pins, and sprokets.
The success of the clockmaker is determined not by creativity in ordering or commentary on the natural world. Rather, success is measured by efficiency, and correctness. Optimality is measured (when it is computationally possible) by precise mathematical metrics. Correctness is determined not by asthetic appeal, creativity, or insight, but by nothing more than the solution being provably correct through the employment of established mathematical techniques. In fact, we might wonder what "correctness" should mean, if anything at all, in the context of an essay.
In the case of the computer program, creatvity or imagination are desirable not in the structure, choice, or ordering of the instructions, but rather in coming upon a correct solution or in visualizing the problem.
A source listing's utility is perhaps directly proportional to its lack of creativity.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
> On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Dave Hayes wrote:
>
> > [This is a rebuttal to a misguided news article.]
> >
> > > Cypher-Censored
> > > By Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
> >
> > Thank you for leaving your email address. It makes this easier.
> >
> > You people (read: the unaware and hypnotized masses, which includes
> > reporters who's desire for attention and political safety holds them
> > in line with the consensual illusion) keep missing the real issue, and
> > substituting issues which only hold themselves in place.
> >
> > [Those of you who know, please excuse the mediaistic terms used in
> > this rebuttal. One must use the symbols one is given to communicate
> > at the level of understanding of those who use them.]
> >
> > > Thus began a debate over what the concept of censorship means in a
> > > forum devoted to opposing it. Did Gilmore have the right to show Vulis
> > > the virtual door? Or should he have let the ad hominem attacks
> > > continue, encouraging people to set their filters accordingly? The
> > > incident raises deeper questions about how a virtual community can
> > > prevent one person from ruining the forum for all and whether only
> > > government controls on expression can be called "censorship."
> >
> > "Cyberspace" is interacted with using tools under the control of the
> > interactor.
> >
yes, and all you need is a simple mail filter.
> > In person-to-person interaction, one's only real defense against what
> > one decides to call "unwanted" is to remove oneself from the arena of
> > interaction. It may not be possible to ignore or run away from certain
> > sources of input.
> >
> > In cyberspace, however, it is not only possible but necessary and even
> > desirable. Cyberspace allows one to interact with many more people
> > then can fit in any given physical space. One simply -cannot- receive
> > input from 2000 people and not employ some sort of filtering
> > mechanism. Indeed, cyberspace has many buttons and switches (and even
> > programmatic filters) which allow one to -completely- control whom one
> > interacts with.
> >
> > Logically, we must conclude that those who frequently and repeatedly
> > cry for the censorship or removal of any source of input from
> > cyberspace are either:
> >
> > -quite clueless about the tools at their disposal
> > -ideologically or personally opposed to the source of input
> > or -in need of large amounts of attention from others
> >
> > Cluelessness can be overcome by appropriate teaching and interest in
> > learning (the latter issue we can safely assume users of popular but
> > ineffectual windowing OSes are not able to overcome). Such
> > cluelessness, however, is not and should never be a reason for
> > censorship.
> >
> > A need for attention can be overcome by refraining from the denial
> > that the need exists, followed by careful observation of that need.
> > More can be said on this, but this is not the forum. Such a need
> > is not and should never be a reason for censorship.
> >
> > Idelological opposition is another matter entirely. To understand this
> > better, we'll need to observe this in action. Here is an example:
> >
> > > Vulis portrays himself as a victim, but as I posted to the list
> > > last week, I disagree. Anyone who's spent any time on the
> > > 100-plus-messages-a-day list can read for themselves the kind of nasty
> > > daily messages that came
Since software is rapidly becoming a material that can implement devices previously possible only in hardware. Consider a GSM for instance.
The problem with treating software as a creative work inherently different from material works is that this argument is quickly defeated, and indeed this is the basis for allowing software patents, for "devices implemented as software", as the EPTO put it once to me when I asked about it.
The real issue is not about differences between software and other materials such as metal and plastic. The real issue is about the basic concept of granting patents on inventions. There are domains where "invention" is a laborious and costly process and where a patent is the only protection that makes it worthwhile to proceed. Medicines is one such domain. But there are other domains where invention is a trivial and fundamental aspect of the work, and where protection is not just unnecessary, but counter-productive, and software sits at this extreme.
Most other domains, such as engineering, sit somewhere in the middle, and patents can be useful or harmful depending on the context.
Making software is not inherently different from any other form of invention, it is the scale and purpose which is different. Comparing software and music is interesting, but it looks to me as if music is simply the same process of invention, take one step further along the artistic line.
In other words: not only is this argument not going to work with legislators, but it may well set the grounds for future extension of patents into domains previously considered pure "art".
The only viable arguments against software patents must be based on solid economic calculations: all patents act against small innovators, concentrate power in the hands of monopolists, and software patents in particular are a serious and possible fatal impediment to the natural and beneficial development of a software industry.
Patents are instruments created by governments to allow their business buddies to monopolise interesting areas of business. Today, any argument against patents, software or not, has to be stated in terms of "benefit to the government", not philosophical arguments about pianos and music. Legislators don't give a rats ass about music.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
If a bunch of code is a "blatant rip-off of existing ideas" that is not the same as a blatant rip-off of an existing expression of those ideas. The key is to understand there is usually more than one expression of each idea. Each separate expression of an idea is valid and protectable under copyright laws but there is not, and according to this process, should not be, any protection under patent laws.
For example, one work of literature may be similar to another because it uses the same idea for the plot, but that has been acceptable practice for authors for hundreds and thousands of years. Under copyright laws, the threshold of similarity is decided by judging the similarity of the expressions of the ideas, not the similarity of the ideas themselves.
RMS is not God.
GNU is God and RMS is his prophet.
Your granted rights include such things as welfare...
So you are saying that because European governments tend to tax higher in order to support a richer welfare system that EU countries will also suffer more violent crime?
This is the strangest anti-state argument I've heard in a long time, and I'm really unsure what it has to do with patents.
If anything, the European-style welfare systems achieve something quite extraordinary: a society in which the poor and the weak always find support, and a society in which spare time is valued over simple wealth, demonstrated by the long holidays most Europeans enjoy.
Violent crime has its origins in things very different from high taxes (again, this linkage boggles my mind, the high-tax countries in Europe are generally the most calm, think Scandinavia and Belgium). Violent crime comes from organised criminal gangs who operate where the state is weakest. This happens when the state fails (in places like Albania) or when the state loses control over large segments of the population (in drug-ridden inner cities). A strong state is almost always a good cure for violent crime, but so is the avoidance of criminalising anti-drug legislation.
You want violent crime? Look at the USA in ten years' time, when almost 1 in 11 men will have been imprisoned at one time or another, and 1 in 3 black Americans will have a criminal record. Somehow, taxes and patents are not behind this. Bizarrely punitive lawmakers and courts, yes.
The EU is a nice place to live and work, and the union will last for much longer than people like you expect.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
We should think player piano (patentable) vs the music (copyrightable but not patentable) it plays.
I'm not sure what this sentence means at all. Is it English? How did it get past the editors? Are the editors English?
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
a piano is an item, a piece of hardware that is patentable
a player piano, is a way of modiflying the above to make it do something, also patentable
The music it plays is copyrightable
----------------------
a computer is an item, a piece of hardware that is patentable
a computer program, is a way of modiflying the above to make it do something, also patentable
The output it produces is copyrightable (documents)
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
For those who are interested, myself and a friend took some photos whilst in Brussels. We were lobbying MEPs in the European Parliament.
h tml
http://www.tomchance.uklinux.net/swpat-brussels.s
Jim Tyre wrote a brief on this for the DeCSS case which espouses a similar idea to Salin's letter. I don't recall that Salin's letter being mentioned mentioned in any of the DeCSS related or the CHBreak cases. I wonder if the PTO or anyone else has paid attention to it?
Fight Spammers!
Of course software patents cause problems. SCO Group has used them to unleash legal hell on Linux. We can't say we haven't been warned.
It would be _so_ much better if software was patented. Patents still expire in reasonably short amounts of time, and you could ensure that any software patent had to come with source. Then, after 14 years or so, you have gobs of open source software, as opposed to nearly a century (95 years as current US copyright goes).
Just a thought.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
This isn't your strongest argument against software patents. Despite decades of litigation in the arena of software patents now (actually, since the early 80's Diamond v. Diehr case), not a single first amendment case has been raised. In sharp contrast, there have been scads of First Amendment issues raised in copyright. Why?
This is easy. Software most certainly is expressive conduct, but it is also most certainly functional as well. Used in connection with a machine for the purpose of the machine's execution, the expressive element of the code is not as signficant as its utility. Used for the purpose of explaining or conveying an algorithm, the utility is not as significant as its utility.
It is the difference between discussing the making of a bomb, and the building and use of one. The courts have finally glommed expressly on this distinction -- it is time our community (even our zealotes) acknowledged it.
Back to copyright and patent. Copyrights, protect expressive works of authorship fixed in tangible media, and it does it by governing how the work is copied, distributed or modified! Patents, in contrast, govern only the making, using or selling of claimed processes. Utlimately, the protection of copyrights are far more invasive in the first amendment sense than are patents,. at least to the extent of limiting the expressive use, not functional uses of the code. And then, of course, we have the recent Bunner decision in California, where the Supreme Court found that where a trade secret is embodied in code, the first amendment is essentially trumped by disclosure of the ideas in the work.
Indeed, most patent claims do not govern expressive uses of the program writing itself, but rather only the methods embodied therein -- you probably don't infringe unless you use your writings in connection with a machine to use its function, not its expression.
That said, the previous sentence isn't completely true: under patent law, the use of text to contribute to or induce infringement by another might be actionable if you expressed yourself with the intent of having another use the code by way of infringement. Moreover, there are such things as Beauregard claims, claims that are directed to the code itself embodied in fixed medium -- and these might be infringed by copyright-like distribution. Finally, copyright, at least, has a fair use exception that captures many first amendment uses (although it has been found of little utility in the DeCSS cases for example).
Yet, the case has yet to happen where a plaintiff has really hit on a first amendment patent case, despite extensive first amendment litigation in the context of copyright and trade secrets. Why?
Several reasons, perhaps. It is hard to use patents, even beauregard claims, to shut down speech. The litigation advantages in trade secret and copyright are not present: it is very difficult to get preliminary injunctions in a patent case, the asset is seriously at risk each time it is asserted and it is VERY expensive to prosecute. Unlike copyright and trade secrets, the first amendment/patent interface might well be open territory for creation of a judge-made first amendment defense. Unlike copyright and trade secrets, the purposes of the patent can well be satisfied without a blatant first amendment invasion.
In short, the argument isn't unique, or even particularly applicable to patents -- it spans each and every limtiation on the distribution of code, ranging from copyright to trade secrets. To the extent code is code and expression, the threats of copyright and expansion of copyright into non-IP protection, like DMCA are far more dangerous to freedom of expression.
> There are natural rights, and there are granted rights.
What makes "right on property" a natural right? Isn't your naming a bit suggestive, and your selection arbitary?
Doesn't the goverment grant me the right own a thing, and denies other people to take it away from me?
What about the "right to smash the next persons head, because I don't like his face"?
Considering the history of humankind, I think that is a natural right, too.
> Unfortunately, I'm seeing this happen in the EU, so I don't expect the union to last.
How are you seeing this happening in the EU, especiallly in comparison to the US?
Nationalism? Bad economy? Unofficial economy? Violent Crime? Social unrest?
> It's what's wrong with patents in general
The idea was, in order to drive innovation a innovative idea deserves the right to be protected, so that the work or the genius in finding it pays of for the one investing it. What is wrong with this logic? Because it "takes away natural rights in order to grant rights, which makes society instable"?
The problem is, most patents are neither innovative, nor was work invested to find the idea and mostly they stifle innovation as they prohibit most people to work on various matters because they create a "patent minefield".
Actually, I'd say there is nothing wrong with the idea of patents, but with their application.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
The problem is that every granted right that is given to one person requires the government to attempt to deprive another person of their natural rights.
This seems to be the center of your entire argument, but it's totally unjustifiable. It makes the fundamentally flawed assumption that "natural rights" and "granted rights" are opposed in some way, but there are countless counter-examples. What natural right does your "right to a single national language" take away? Some imaginary natural right to have other people understand you when you speak your language of choice? What about the "right not to compete agaings foreign labor"? Do you think we have a natural right to have other people hire us if we do the best job?
Without even getting into the fact that you give a list of natural rights that not everyone would agree on, your argument is deeply flawed. Go read some more philosophy of the ideas of rights, then try again.
Moderators, before you mod up a post because it uses long words, read the damn thing. All this guy is saying is that left-wing politics cause violent crime, which is a great explanation for violent crime in the inner cities, it's cause of those commie drug lords.
The parent post is just a fancy troll. Please give me mod points today so I can squash it down where it belongs.
The above comment was insightful.
What's so great about having a software patent vs. having a copyright on the software? I mean doesn't copyright effectively last forever, whereas patents expire within a reasonable time? With the DMCA in the USA and similar legislation being passed in EU (What's the status on that?) seems like companies may have more power with their copyright than with a patent.
Anyway, ot question if copyright is supposed to expire like 75 years after the original author dies (In the Usa) what about companies that claim they own the copyright to something, does that mean the copyright expires 75 years after the company dies? It's not like a company inevitably dies, anyway I was just randomly thinking about that cause I just woke up and I'm stupid.
Letter to the Patent Office From Professor Donald Knuth
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Use poetic aliterative variable names which connotate the emotion behind the variable rather than stark descriptive variable names which denotate the purpose of the variable.
Use a pretty turn of algorithm rather than a boring direct approach.
Write additional haiku, odes, sonets, etc. in the comments rather than describe your intentions in writing a particular step in the code.
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
This is one of the best explanations I've seen.
Actually I've never seen a good explanation why software patents shouldn't be allowed. They usually boil to one of three arguments:
(1) there are stupid patents out there
(2) 17 years is too long
(3) I don't want to search for patents when I code
Let's go over each one of them. For (1), the fix is to not issue stupid patents. Stupid patents are not a software specific issue, although admittedly, we have more than our fair share of them due to the inexperience of USPTO reviewers with software.
(2) is debatable, but for the sake of the argument let's say it is. The the solution is to reduce, not eliminate, the length of coverage of the patent.
(3) is not much of an argument. Laws incovenience people. You will have to pay for that TV instead of being able to steal it without consequences. That is not an argument against break and enter laws.
At the same time, anti-patent rants rarely address the imbalance between inventing some clever device that uses gears which is patentable and some equally clever device that uses a computer to run on which according to anti-patent advocates should not be patentable. In other words, the mechanical engineer gets a patent, the computer engineer doesn't.
There is no reason why should two equally creative, similar, useful discoveries, should be granted fundamentally different protection under the law.
"I've been struggling with the question 'what's wrong with software patents' but haven't been able to find the right words."
These are the words of someone who is either finishing up a summer school term paper or anticipating this coming school year!
Sorry if I'm cynikal. That's simply what first popped into my mind when I read the question.
So much has already gone into effort to stop "Software Patents" in Europe but to no avail. Perhaps the reason is the Europe is taking the better safe than sorry approach.
Considering the US patent office grants patents and anything from the wheel to swinging sideways on a swing, dropping their responsibility of granting only valid patents, while letting the court system (that finds MS guilty of Federal crimes but does not punish them)..... sort it out at the aditional expense of the concerned parties..
The better safe then sorry approach is one of allowing software patents, knowing full well they may very well be wrong morallly and technically, the unanswered question means to do it and sort it out or correct it later, when "proof" is supplied one way or the other about the validity of software patents.
There is more to the issue than whether or not software patents are valid in nature, there is the length of time these man made laws have defined, and been redefinedm and again lengthened...
It all seems to come down to money, whos got the most to win any battle, with absolutely no concern to ever stop the war ---- its to profitable for teh legal system making the laws up as they go along.
As I said above, this Europe debate on software patents has been going on for some time, and even I have commented to those of concern and organized effort to fight such software patents. search my input and who to.
Perhaps there can be some inspiration to be found in the THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE as to Learning how to say NO to the Law Makers and Backers.
Off Topic but semi-relevant: did you know that photo portrait studios reatain the rights to you family photos? That's right! If you take your cute-as-a-button 3 year old daughter to Nolan Frills studio for pictures, they own the photos! You just get some prints. Conceivably they could sell those photos to some magazine and make big bucks from them. Read it here - they might release the copyright for a fee.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
So, here's a game for you: Get some friends together, 6 or 8 iof you perhaps and all start talking. The first one to say a word gets to hold the patent on that word. Anyone else using it in the conversation has to give him a penny.
See how long the conversation lasts. For added realism, allow players to charge for using thing referred to by the word. So saying blue lets you charge a royaly to anyone in a blue sweater.
Bonus marks for the first player to say "oxygen".
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Software patents are a good thing. The problem is that patents are granted for the lamest, most obvious ideas. It might be true that some company was the first to come up with an idea, but that might simply be because it was the first to encounter the problem.
What should be protected is the person or company who does a large amount of research and development on an algorithm that has a non-obvious solution, or the obvious solution to a non-obvious problem.
Henry Ford's assembly-line algorithm for the production of cars is, in my opinion, a patentable idea. Putting the radio controls on the steering wheel is as obvious as Amazon's one-click shopping.
Where was the industry when the Internet was being developed in the academic world through an open source model?
The path to follow in software was marked in the 80s thanks to the work of a lot of people, moved not because of economics, but because of scientific ways.
And now, multinationals wants us to believe that patents are necessary for the economic development of the world!
The LPF has several notable papers by notables regarding software patent issues here: http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html
11*43+456^2
regards
Suicide Bomberman
1.Applicants must show a working example of their patent that implements all the claims contained in the patent. If they dont, they dont get the patent. (this would probobly get rid of some of the shonky patents)
2.The patent office should do better searches for prior art and if things are found that should have been found by the applicant, the applicant must pay the patent office money (to discorage the filing of "obvious" patents and so on)
3.If you dont enforce your patent, you risk loosing it (i.e. it would be similar to what happens with trademarks now). This would actually be good since it would prevent things like what happened in the Unisys LZW case.
4.Once a patent has been submitted, it cant be changed. Also, the patent must be published publicly as soon as it is submitted. (as a Pending Patent or something) Also, the date a patent expires goes from when the patent was submitted not when it was granted. (this would prevent e.g. patents that are submitted then modified then modified again then delayed and so on in an attempt to make the patent last longer)
and 5.You cant patent a formula or algortihim (genetic, biological, chemical or mathematical).
This would mean that patenting individual genes or whole organisims would be illegal. As would patenting software algortihims like encryption, compression and so on. An example here might be a test for breast cancer that looks for a breast cancer gene. You can claim a patent over your specific way of finding that one gene from all the others (assuming that there is no prior art of course) but you cant patent the gene itself or patent "testing for breast canser by finding this gene".
I think one way to cut down on frivolous patent and copyright lawsuits is to require compilable source code for everything seeking protection under copyright or patent law. SCO wants to claim Linux infringed, but if they had been forced to release the code in order to gain a legal monopoly on it I doubt they would be able to -- and the community could easily check the claim and fix any problems. Microsoft would have been forced to release the source for everything since the DOS 1.0 days, and while others couldn't copy this directly it would help with any software that needed to tie in to the operating system (and no more hidden or undocumented features that only MS workers could use).
The software manufacturers might claim that this would allow others to steal their valuable property, but since the thieves would either A) not be stopped by copyright/patent anyway or B) be forced to release *their* source code, I doubt this would be a serious problem.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
If you even look at the behavior of animals, you will see that they claim property and defend it as their own. Therefore, the right of property is a natural right.
The right to smash someone's face, as you claim, is part of the right to self defense; but "self defense" inherently includes "taking the offensive" as well. Essentially, yeah, if people are going to fight each other, then fighting is going to happen. So it, too, is a natural right. Locking someone up to keep them from fighting is a right granted to other people to smooth the edges of a very rough life.
Regarding the US, I didn't mention it, because I thought it was obvious. The US has nothing to do with freedom: there are granted rights everywhere, and very seldom are inherent rights officially acknowledged, much less upheld. I am not holding up US as an example, therefore.
Okay... your most important statement.
"In order to": That involves a value judgement, perfectly fine as long as you don't put the force of government behind it
"drive innovation"... very nice, but innovation is not worth much in and of itself, unless you think that next year all teachers should wear clown masks (that's innovative, but not effective).
"an innovative idea deserves the right"... I'm sorry, did we get away from human rights? Now ideas have rights and humans do not? How about the right to labor with your skills to better your condition?
"to be protected"... thus, you are dealing not with rights, but with protection
"so that the work or the genius in finding it pays off"...if the idea has value, then it will probably pay off anyhow. If it doesn't have value, then it shouldn't.
"...for the one investing it." That, in my opinion, is the entire point of patents: for the investor. In other words, for the person with money, with power, so that they can have more money, more power. Which is why it has the power to become law. So we're going to damage the economy (which patents do), in order to benefit those with power, and give them more power. There's nothing new in that: despots like Saddam Hussein's sons stole businesses left and right, and girls too, and fed their boyfriends to the lions... but it doesn't make it right.
So I'd say that even the idea of patents is wrong. That is, the application will always be wrong, because the basic reason behind them is wrong.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Your views on granted rights are rather funny. What you're saying is essentially that the feeling of freedom and also crime levels in general should be worse in Europe than they are in the US - which is the place where you get the least granted rights. Reasses it, please. IMHO, freedom is just the same, if not better. As for violent crime, I don't think I need any arguments here. US criminal records are by far higher than that of the worst EU contries...
A week ago I attended a speech by RMS here in Brazil. The theme was "Software Patents". He gave us some nice examples of why software patents are so bad. I shall name some:
- SpreadSheet calculation using topological sorting is patented, eventhough it was invented 40 year ago.
- An MIT professor managed to pattent an Electricity Law (ridiculous).
- Software are very complex and pattents were not built for that complexity.
So you are saying that because European governments tend to tax higher in order to support a richer welfare system that EU countries will also suffer more violent crime?
I'm not sure that your premise is true. Tax is just one form of granted rights. Monopoly, or government taxes that then pay for government contracts to companies, are also granted rights. As far as I can tell, the American system has a higher rate of granted rights than Europe, so I'd rather expect it to have more violent crime, as well.
You have to understand that America is far more socialist than Europe in a lot of ways; but it's a right-wing socialism. To say I'm pushing "right wing", trolling "left wing" would not be a correct statement at all. I'm really sorry if I gave that impression.
As far as I can tell, violent crime comes from a number of factors, one of which is extreme frustration caused by an inability to live in a stable situation. As such, it is an indicator that your government is falling -- but it is by no means the only indicator.
That said, I do fully expect Europe to have problems with violent crime, whether that be France (don't they have a problem with gangs outside Paris?), Germany (anti-Turkish crime), Spain (highway robbery, mafia, armed revolution in two or three quarters?), Italy, and so on.
But let's look at the process for one kind of violent crime, the criminal gangs: the criminal gangs, as you say, come in where the state is weakest. But where is the state weakest? Usually where they have driven an economy underground, so that there is financial incentive driving an entirely secondary government (the crime lords, if you will). There can be ways that an economy is driven underground, meanwhile. One is taxes. One is regulations prohibiting an activity ineffectively. Yet another, though, could be social norms that provide a secondary government that the first refuses to recognize. [As such, if you have a large Basque population and an underground Basque system of governance, the national government would do best to look at the Basque government, and recognize it officially.]
As you say, a strong state is almost always a good cure for violent crime; but in the end, for a state to be strong they have to have the support of the people they rule. And to do that, they have to in general uphold inherent rights; because people in general are not going to give their inherent rights up.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Engineers in other fields have had to deal with this issue for two centuries. Get over it. The same argument could be made for the developers of player pianos, which the author says *should* be patentable. If he wanted to argue against all patents, this would be a valid argument, but that's not what he's saying.
There are other problems as well with this "software is free speech" approach. Source code is text - so what? Circuits expressed as VHDL are text too, so are plans for any mechanical device. Since all of these are just text and pictures, why single out software?
It's the idea for which the software is an embodiment that is patented. If you try to copy the idea, even by writing your own software, you would be guilty of patent infringement.
More formally, the thing that is patented is the device a computer becomes when running a given piece of software. For example, if, back in the day, the guys who wrote VisiCalc had patented the idea for doing electronic spreadsheets, what they would have patented would have been the electronic spreadsheet machine that the computer would have become by running VisiCalc. The fact that the idea used a computer and software as part of its embodiment is irrelevant.
Putting software together in just the right way to transform a computer into a novel invention is patentable just like putting gears, wheels, iron plating, etc., together in just the right way to transform a bunch of metal into a steam engine is patentable.
The complaint against "software patents" and the USPTO has to do with the "novelty" and "non-obvious" tests for patent worthiness and calls into question the USPTO's ability to make good desicions regarding software-embodied inventions only and does not mean that software patents as a whole are bad.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Isn't software currently covered (in the U.S.) under copyright law? Don't copyrights last much longer than patents? (copyright is effectively perpetual vs. 20 years for a patent)
What's the big deal?
I'd go with technology patents if they were restricted to 5 years. The world moves fast. You can't make your money back in 5 years, give someone else a chance.
I believe your basic premises are inaccurate in several ways. Firstly, your definitions of "granted" and "natural" rights. This is a highly subjective viewpoint: looking at cultures across time and space it's more realistic to say that the very notion of a "right" is a granted thing. "Natural rights" sound nice but simply don't exist, unless you count the right to suffer and die, which is a bit brutal.
Secondly, more fundamentally, your assertion that the balance between "natural" and "granted" rights somehow implies a conflict between groups and governments. The conflicts are there, yes, and they are important, but they come from other much simpler reasons. What you eat, I can't. What you burn, I can't. What you take, I can't. Thus conflict is the simplest way of increasing one's well-being. But it's not the only one, and all human cultures survive by implementing sophisticated conflict avoidance mechanisms, between people and between groups. Trade is one of these. Social welfare another. Armies of poor people make fodder for wars, as Europe has discovered many times.
The rest of your argument is based on what are, to me, fallacies, and you if you take your ideas to a logical conclusion I think you will see they don't make sense. High taxes leading to crime is one good example.
I live in a high-tax country (Belgium) and I am aware of the extent of the black economy. However, this is not a criminal economy except in the eyes of the tax authorities. When the government makes unenforceable laws, people ignore them and life carries on, pretty much as normal.
The criminal networks seem to arise in one very specific situation, which can have many causes. This situation is when the state retreats from enforcing its law in some area or segment of society. I gave some examples already.
Why is the state so important as a law enforcement agency? This question lies at the heart of the matter when it comes to violence and criminal violence.
It has been shown often that violence is self-perpetuating, and for good reason. If your neighbour is likely to come and rob or injure you, you have every interest in going across to his place and doing it to him first. Self-protection means being more aggressive than strictly necessary, since under-aggression leaves one vulnerable. The logic of this is implacable, and leads to vendettas and other extraordinary symptoms of violence.
The state cuts through this cycle by defining itself as the only legal hand of violence. Crimes and punishments are defined a priori, and though this does not necessarily deter crime, it deters the cycle of violence that follows crime.
In every historical instance where a police force is instituted, crime rates fall sharply. A corrupt and violent police force is much, much better than none at all.
Now, how does this fairly successful system sometimes break down? One case is when the victim of a crime cannot go to the authorities. Criminals tend to resort to extreme violence not because it's in their nature, but because they revert to the non-state logic of crime and punishment. And when illogical laws - such as prohibition of alcohol or drugs - creates large "criminal" communities, extreme violence is a natural and inevitable consequence.
The best answer to all this appears to be twofold. Firstly, human nature is basically and generally good, because that is more successful in the long term. Secondly, for this to work we need a strong civil society backed-up by a strong but even-handed state.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
isn't an art it's just plain work. You do it because you have to. Wraping it in cute little "it's art" or "it's like creating a symphony" is just plain stupid and means the coder is in complete denial over his drab/dull work. Period. That's how I always viewed programming.
The problem with treating software solely under copyright law is that it does not recognize the functional, technological component inherent in software.
Music is not a functional, algorithmic implementation of a transformative process. There is no mapping of a range to a domain inherent in a piece of music.
Patents are awarded for Inventions (also sometimes termed Implementations), and copyrights for Expressions. If someone were to take an existing well known algorithm, say the bubble sort, and code it up in his language of choice, that work is an expression and is protectable by copyright.
If somebody were to examine and existing piece of mathematics and realize for the first time that it has applicability in solving a sorting problem, and then code it up, he would have both an invention (use of the math in the contect of the sorting problem on a computer) and an expression (the computer code). Clearly this qualifies in some protean sense as an invention.
Heck, the author would even be able to take the result as a working model to the patent office - on his laptop computer, satisfying the old 19th century requirement for a working model.
The concept of a working model of a piece of music just does make sense.
Nor does the concept that a piece of software is solely an expression.
Another point I think is worth making is that I'm left quite uncomfortable by this particular diatribe against software patents. Here's why: I tried reading it while replacing each instance of "software" with "invention", and it makes almost as much sense.
Patents have always been on ideas, not necessarily incredibly narrow instantiations of the ideas. The difference that makes an idea patentable (vs. copyrightable) is whether it has utility. If an idea, even a broad idea, is new and inventive, you've always been able to get a patent on that broad invention. Historically these have been harder to enforce than narrow patents (and rightly so), but they've always been granted.
And, finally, prohibiting software patents makes all patents useless. We might as well prohibit all patents. Anything can be done in software on a sufficiently general-purpose machine. If I can't protect my "real" mechanical invention against someone doing the same thing, except partly in software, I can't protect my invention at all.
This pretty much covers it for me: Data processing is not a field of technology.
Algorithms are independent of their technological embodiment. Contrast this with, say, the plans for building an automobile. You can't climb into the plans and drive from point A to point B. You have build an actual car. Data can be processed by an algorithm without using a computer. Therefore the algorithm is beyond patentability.
Salin's free speech argument depends only on the claim that software is expression. You have shown that writing software may involve invention as well as expression, but that does nothing to undermine Salin's argument. Consider the example that he gives of patenting plot devices or narrative structures. If one can patent "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back" then one then one can prevent anyone else from producing a new expression that employs this old narrative structure. Salin's point here is not that there is nothing to patent, but that such a patent would interfere with free expression.
That argument is so lame and it certainly won't win over any politicians. Although an avid software user, I have never perused source code or binaries for the purpose of personal enlightenment and I doubt a lot of users have. A piece of software is nothing like a piece of music or literature. It is written for and chiefly used as a device for generating a particular output from a particalur input. I have yet to see a book or a musical score that accept input values. Also, your line of reasoning seem to suggest that any currently patentable device can be considered an artistic expression. A can-opener is a kind of sculpture, right?
Please don't miscredit the anti-software patent community by pushing babble like this. Stick to what matters: software patents hurts innovation.
There is no distinction in software. The same code which describes something can also (when run) do it. That's a problem with the DMCA, and that's a problem with software patents as well. Patents require disclosure of the description but forbid building the device. However, the description plus a general purpose computer IS the device, making that distinction less than useful.
Unfortunately, US courts have seen this problem and are taking the non-free way out, deciding that speech which has functional qualities, whether computer code or bomb-making instructions, is not really protected by the First Amendment. Further, the CA Supreme Court has decided that merely informative speech isn't protected if it's a trade secret. The age of freedom is truly over.
I live in a high-tax country (Belgium) and I am aware of the extent of the black economy. However, this is not a criminal economy except in the eyes of the tax authorities. When the government makes unenforceable laws, people ignore them and life carries on, pretty much as normal.
When whole sectors of an economy are driven over to 'a dark side' in order to even exist, there's something fundamentally wrong with 'the system' that forces them over to that 'dark side.'
A Good Intro to NetBS
You have the right to remain silent.
I am not exactly persuaded by Salin's argument against software patents as such, but I think he has one half of a very compelling legal argument against the permissibility of allowing both software copyrights and software patents.
In the past a number of attempts have been made to challenge copyright restrictions on the basis that they violate the first ammendment. The Supreme Court has almost always held that copyright does not limit free expression because of the built in limitations in copyright law, and because copyright protects only expressions and not ideas. Copyright does not limit what you can say, it just limits how you can say it (i.e. you can not say it by copying the way that someone else said it).
Now personaly I think the biggest problem with Salin's argument is really the claim that software is a type of expression. However, if software is not a type of expression then it should not be covered by copyright. To be covered by copyright a particular piece of code must be saying something. But then the if it were also covered by patent then that would prevent anyone from saying the same thing in any other way. Which would infringe of freedom of expression.
In short, either software patents infringe on free expression, or software is not eligible for copyright protection.
Machined parts are expressed as machining instructions cranked out by CAD programs. You can look at the part in 3D, then send it to the machine shop to be made. (Check out emachineshop, which is a free CAD program. Select the material, design your part, click on "Price" to get an estimate, then use "Place Order" to order the part. A machine shop in New Jersey will make it for you and send it back.) That, too, is clearly a "writing".
At some point, anything complicated that's done by multiple people is expressed as a "writing" in some form.
> If you even look at the behavior of animals, you will see that they claim property and defend it as their own.
There is a difference, between claiming property and having the right on property.
Among animals, there is the right of the strongest. That is hte "natural" right. The stronger one is able to eat, to bread and to live, the weaker ones die.
> The right to smash someone's face, as you claim, is part of the right to self defense;
No, I said the right to smash someone's face, because one doesn't like it. It is also "natural". But nowadays, we prefer to call it babaric.
> unless you think that next year all teachers should wear clown masks (that's innovative, but not effective).
Words form sentences, sentences make a context and the words convey ideas. Please, don't pluck the words out of the context.
It is not an innovative idea in the context we are speaking, unless the clown masks are embedded in a paedological program, in which case it might be innovative, and should it yield better education it is worth. Worth is determined by the result.
> but innovation is not worth much in and of itself
Well, before Microsoft came, innovation usually meant development, progress. One could argue that progress is not much worth, but I'd say it is up
to the society to decide.
I assume you are not argueing against technological progress.
> I'm sorry, did we get away from human rights?
Sorry, wrong wording on my side. (I'm not a native speaker). Of course, I did not meant that the idea deserves the right, but the one who creates the idea.
> In other words, for the person with money, with power, so that they can have more money, more power.
Well, as Karl Marx has already noted a century ago, this is intrinsic to capitalism and I won't deny that this is a conceptual problem inherent to the system.
So, are you suggesting, the fruits of research by companies should not be protected by the goverment? So, who will then publish the research? I'd say this leaves the goverment to fund it.
> thus, you are dealing not with rights, but with protection
You say, they are seperable? I always had the (mis?)conception, that in a just society, rights have to be protected.
> fine as long as you don't put the force of government behind it
Why? The whole point of a goverment is for the society to exert force collectivly.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
I have had the page online for quite some time now, yet am quite surprised to have yet to receive a DMCA notice about. My hosting service hasn't received one either. It's especially surprising considering that the page places in the first page of results at Google for a search for content scrambling system. I get a few referrals from queries for "decss" as well, although the page doesn't rank so highly for it.
Perhaps an explanation for this phenomenon can be found in the following quote from another notorious criminal, which appears prominently on my page:
Perhaps this suggests to those who would send cease-and-decist letters that I would contest them vigorously, and I might appear to be a more reputaable defendant than Emmanuel Goldstein was.I have written more recent piece called Practice Civil Disobedience that you may enjoy reading.
Absolutely everybody though, should read Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. I understand that it inspired not only King and Gandhi, but also the Dutch resistance under the Nazis.
It's not long, being just twenty pages or so in dead tree form. Here's a Spanish translation.
It's not hard at all to find in paperback. My local used bookstore had editions from two different publishers that also included Walden for just three bucks apiece.
I read somewhere that Senator Joseph McCarthy, who instigated the infamous "witch trial" hearings by the Senate Committee on Unamerican Activities, was appalled to discover that Civil Disobedience, being considered a classic work of American literature, was standard issue for the libraries that the U.S. government operates around the world, I guess for overseas servicemen. He got all the copies removed.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Because the code is an actual implementation of a new, unique, non-obvious idea, it qualifies for a utility patent. Anyone who has taken a design and implemented it understands that there are many ways to implement a particular idea, so it's not the actual implementation that's it's the underlying ideas... the implementation is simply a reduction to practice
Furthermore, people make arguments that underlying technologies such as XML and HTML should not be patentable. This is a ridiculous idea! XML and HTML were breakthroughs intellectually. The person or persons responsible for this breakthrough idea should be allowed to reap the rewards. If they decide they wish to open their ideas up to the world and let the world play with them, they can publish openly or file an SIR with the USPTO. The key is that it is the inventor's decision... not yours!
How do you go about differentiating between a "math" invention and your "real" invention?
/30% mechanical, who's to say?). The realization of solutions to these problems should be patentable (in line with the overriding basis for IP protection).
Its easy to dtermine that a pure algorithm is unpatentable. The difficulty arises when physical utility is associated with that new algorithm.
What if I improve anti-skid brakes by an improved algorithm in the logic of the device? Is this patentable?
What about an invention that is 90% software ("math") and 10% mechanical.
80%/20%?
20%/80%?
How could anyone possibly make the determination that one invention is a little too much algorithm dependent and very similar invention is not?
The basic concept behind all IP laws (Laws that for some unknown reason have been determined to be necessary in all developed nations, yes even China, and have withstood the cries of patent abolitionists for hundreds of years) is that they serve as an incentive for investment into new technology.
Thus the reasoning should follow that these laws should apply to anything which provides utility and would not have been undertaken or would have been undertaken at a later date without the incentive that IP protection provides.
It follows that the argument should in reality be centered upon the amount of difficulty required (obviousness factors) in order to arrive at the new utility.
There are difficult problems that can be solved via software (again, 90% sw/ 10% mechanical, 70% sw
The real solution is to disallow the trivial SW patents that would have been arrived at no sooner in the absence of IP protection.
people in general are not going to give their inherent rights up.
Never been to the USA, huh?
No, not really a "dark side". This is far too simplistic and the kind of thinking that leads to trouble (as in: "that man is smoking crack, he's breaking the law, so send him to jail and create a real criminal").
It's really just a process of negotiation between the law makers and the citizenship. Europe tends to do this somewhat differently from the USA - in the States laws are designed and debated with near-religious fervour. In Europe, when governments make laws we don't like, we simply ignore them. In general it works very well because there is nonetheless a strong sense of right and wrong which keeps people in check. "Walk on the grass, OK. Kick the flowers, not OK." This is different in each European country, and the UK for instance follows the US model more closely than Italy.
Example: in Belgium the law sets the maximum speed limit at 120 Kmph on the motorways. You will see at least 50% of drivers doing 130 or more. This is socially acceptable when the roads are empty. Doing the same when the roads are packed is seen as irresponsible.
Second example: in Belgium (again), you are expected to cheat on your tax returns if you're a professional or small business, and the state handles this by negotiation for most people, and punishment only for those who cheat in a stupid or insulting manner (like inventing invoices). Compare this to the UK where a meeting with the tax inspector is something like the Inquisition.
Third example (now in the other direction): Belgian law treats immigration very seriously, and illegal immigrants can expect to be picked-up, detained, and deported. This is largely because there is a strong passion for social "order" in many quarters. But behind the scenes, the governments regularly grant block amnesties, allow students to get permanent residence, make it easy for families to reunit, etc. Why? Because here the government takes a more realistic stance ("we need immigrants") than the general population ("funny people, smell strange").
Last related example: in US states like Texas, illegal migrant workers keep the economy working. Despite legislation, everyone turns a blind eye to the large "illegal" workforce. In those states where enforcement is most relaxed, you will find illegal migrants to be most integrated and least involved in general crime or criminal networks.
I hope these examples show that a healthy civil state needs lots of negotiation between citizens and government as to what constitutes "the Law". One of the citizens' basic tools in this process is to disobey stupid or irrelevant laws (especially those pertaining to individual freedoms), and this tool works very well so long as the state remains an arbitrer and sanctuary in case of conflict between parties.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Courts have held that all sorts of physical objects are Constitutionally protected expression, but the fact that some objects are patented does not seem to interfere with free expression. The same holds true for software patents. What sort of "expression" is interfered with by, say, the RSA algorithm? We now have thousands of software patents, including a lot that are plain stupid, but I can't think of one that interferes with free expression, as that term is normally understood. Only by treating all software as "expression" can software patents be considered to interfere. But the same things holds if we start by assuming that all physical objects are expression. Someone who wants to copy the design of a new OLED could then clam that existing patents are "interfereing with free expression." Salin is starting from a flawed premise.
This reminds me of a discussion I had once in college. A fellow student felt his programming classes should fulfill his language credit requirements. I asked him to translate the constitution into Pascal. He tried to weasel it by making it a bunch of writeln's, but gave up when I pointed out that the constitution was still in English, he had merely written a way of putting it on a computer screen.
The point I was going for is that at its heart a computer program is a set of instructions, not ideas or stories. Comparing them to recipes would be more coherent than comparing them to literature. Their functionally equivalent to the designs included with your build-yourself projects. You supply the material, apply their instructions (i.e. algorithms), and end up with a result of some sort.
The problem with software patents isn't that they exist, but that a) they are being granted to previously known concepts and b) they are overly generalized. How many different Swifter-type products are there? Or door locks or VCRs? They each have their own patents, but work in different ways. But if you even mention 'One-Click' on you're web site Amazon will be breathing down your neck, regardless of how you implemented it.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
There is no such thing as natural rights. All rights are granted by the governments (via courts). It is quite possible for you to lose your natural rights, just like how you can gain new natural rights in the future.
Consider sexual orientation. Fifty years ago (or even now in many countries), if you were a homosexual, you had no rights (can't live together, can't marry, can't have sex, etc). In 50 years from now, I'll bet this will become what you call "natural right". It didn't exist but you will gain it.
All you need is change in attitude of the people. You can easily, for example, implement fascism and discriminate against people. The courts will back you; the governments will back you; and the people will back you too.
All rights are granted by the government and taken away by the government. Until there is no government (or some authority) you won't have natural rights whether you like it or not...
I also disagree with your main arguments. For instance, you say that the more "granted rights" you have, the weaker the government. I say this has nothing to do with govt strength. Government strength comes from other factors. You simply need to look at the top two totalitarian governments in the last 100years: fascism and Communism. One on the right, the other on the left. Both of these governments were EXTREMELY strong. They "granted" a lot of rights yet were very strong...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
i truly and honestly belive it's the Mad Cow Disease in europa that is the source of this evil-ness.
...
... ever seen a documentary how they transport the cows and sheeps to say, saudi arabia? one scene: the workers tie a rope to the horns of a cow so they can lift her on to the ship for transport. 15 meters up, KRACK!! the horn brakes and SMASH! the cow iMPACTS on the cemented dock. talk about nasty!
eat infected meat -> get mad -> make silly laws -> go to hell
there are aliens in the univers but they haven't gotten around to visting us yet.
and just because a cow doesn't walk around in circles and collapses and has spit running out of her mouth doesn't mean she's not infected. i heard of people wlaking around with cancer for more then 5-10 years before they acctually "bite the dust".
excuse me, how many years since they made a law forbidding fedding meat to vegetarien animals? 5 years? 10 years?
AND: europe has been exporting *shiver* meat to arabic countries
You have to understand that America is far more socialist than Europe in a lot of ways; but it's a right-wing socialism.
.why do you say USA is "socialist"?
No offense but get your description of econopolitical systems right. It makes no sense, not to mention misleading, to claim that USA is socialist. And right wing socialist!?! Socialism is left wing! Plain and simple. There is no way you can claim that there can be a right wing version.
I really don't know why you call USA "socialist". It is very capitalist and has almost no features of socialism: egalitarianism, utiltarianism, strong welfare, strong worker rights, strong environmental rights, protectionism, etc.
I'm really curious..
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Programs are also pure math expressions.
Imagine someone trying to patent '2+2=4', beautiful.
What's in a sig?
But how is a physical device not an expression of ideas? I mean, you can see it, you can see the schematics, they hold ideas.
The big problem I see with the 'software is just ideas' or 'software is just math' is that everything can be reduced to 'ideas' or 'math'. I mean, you could after all implement that software with an ASIC or whatever, should you be able to patent it then? It's hardware.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Only by treating all software as "expression" can software patents be considered to interfere.
All software is legally treated as expression. That's why you can copyright software. If you can show that software is not expression then you can avoid Salin's free speech argument, but you would also have shown that software can not be copyrighted, because copyright protects only expression.
But the same things holds if we start by assuming that all physical objects are expression. Someone who wants to copy the design of a new OLED could then clam that existing patents are "interfereing with free expression."
In the case of software there is a pretty good argument to be made for the claim that it is all expression. Software gets written, and it can be read, just like a novel or a textbook. On the other hand most inventions do not resemble typical forms of expression at all, and do not appear to be attepts to "say something".
More importantly, even in those cases where inventions do happen to express something they are seldom self-referential in the sense that the idea expressed is idea put into practice by the invention itself. As a result, a patent only prevents others from practicing an invention, not from expressing whatever it is that the invention expresses. The situation is quite different in the case of software. The idea expressed by software, and the idea put into useful practice by software, are one in the same. Every expression of that idea would be an instance of the invention. Thus a patent on a software invention would make it impossible for anyone to express that particular idea.
In any case you can not have it both ways. If software does not express then it should not be subject to copyright. If it does express then it should not be subject to patent.
The point I was going for is that at its heart a computer program is a set of instructions, not ideas or stories.
And how can you communicate an instruction without communicating an idea? If I tell you to "please add 27 and 32" I am giving you an instruction, but I am also communicating. And what am I communicating? An idea, albeit a very simple one.
Comparing them to recipes would be more coherent than comparing them to literature
I'm not sure what you mean by "coherent" in this context, but I agree that a recipe-as-a-set-of-instructions is a very close analogy to a program-as-a-set-of-instructions, and that a literature analogy is not quite so close. But communication does not need to have artistic value to be an expression of an idea and thus immune from patents.
However, there are those who believe that ideas should be patentable. I believe that if a set of instructions to a computer is patentable then any set of instructions whether to some kind of machine or to another animal like a dog or monkey or human(electro-chemical machines) should be patentable as well. This means that not only can I copyright my recipe for apple pies and the set of instructions I give to my dog for doing tricks, but that I can also patent the process of making apple pies and the particular sequence of tricks my dog does, at least when a group of instructions is used to do so.
How a series of instructions is not considered "speech" is beyond me. I will be the first to admit that it is not artistic speech, or even very interesting or easily readable speech, but it is still a form of communication, and thus must be classified as a form of "speech".
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
<sarcasm>Yeah, all that violent crime in the highly socialist Sweden.</sarcasm>
Oh, wait...
a society in which the poor and the weak always find support, and a society in which spare time is valued over simple wealth, demonstrated by the long holidays most Europeans enjoy.
10,000 dead French people can't be wrong.
First of all, I work in the field you are using as an example, and I wish you luck in trying to submit a part for manufacturing without any detailed 2D drawings at all. While I don't doubt that some shops will find that acceptable, in general it won't cut it. You still need a human being (a machinist) to manufacture the part, and he needs tolerances, threads, roughness and other specifications which are nearly impossible to indicate with a solid/surface model.
In any case, a part model could be seen as a form of communication if it is being used as an input to a milling machine. It is communicating with the machine to tell it where and how much to mill.
Dimensional drawings of a part represent instructions for making that part (although they describe the result and not the process). These instructions should also be considered speech and be copyrightable but not patentable. I don't see the problem. The finished part is not a form of speech. It is the result of work done by following instructions that were expressed with a form of speech. So your implied argument that any manufactured object is a form of speech is false.
You can tell someone "Hey, go build a house for me!". That's an instruction, and a form of (verbal) speech. If he goes out and actually does build a house for you, the house might be patentable (if it is novel), but the instructions you gave the builder (software) are not themselves patentable.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
My explanation of why Software Patents are oxymoronic.
One point I think I made more clearly, that should have been made in that piece and would have fit perfectly, is that to my knowledge, only software is covered by both Copyright and Patents; it should be no surprise that two systems that were never designed to work together, basically don't! Copyright fits software much better then patents; that's a sign it should be treated under the copyright system and not the patent system. IMHO, I also did a somewhat more thorough job of exploring that point.
Still, for a 1991 essay, that was pretty darned good.
Read: http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/indpr op/comp/alcatel.pdf
and who owns your thoughts?
just how disconnected must one be, to be safe???
The only way to undermine the direction of software patents (worldwide even) is to , to use an analogy. The Roman Numeral system was outdated and proven to be weak in power compaired to the Hindu-Arabic Decimal system. In essence it proved beyond doubt that the Roman Numeral system was greatly lacking the value of nothing as a place holder. It showed fault in the Roman Numeral system use in mathmatics.
In the same way, the software patent issue is like the Roman Numeral system in not showing a more complete and full scope picture of reality.
Most software patents are in fact in violation of even the three primary things you cannot patent, natural law, physical phenomenon and abstract ideas, and further violate the case of mathmatical algorythims not supposed to be being patentable, amoung other "cannot patent" facets.
What is lacking is genuine and validateable software engineering foundation upon which software can be tested against to see if it might qualify for patentability.
In other words, the skill of babeling abstractions from an industry focused on such skill has dumbfounded those outside of that industry, including offices of Intellectual property grants.
What is needed to undo this problems growing in wrongful IP rights is to establish the genuine science of the physics of abstraction creation and usage.
Or in the analogy of Roman Numeral vs. Decimal System, the Natural laws of the Physical Phenomenon of creating and using abstract ideas from "nothing" is a simply not a patentable process in a patent system that fully recognizes the physics of abstraction. Which the current IP granting system and psuedo science does not recognize. Once such genuine software science has recognized this "zero" of abstraction physics then a great deal becomes so undeniably easy and obvious (like what the decimal system did for mathmatics) that a great deal more of the "not patentable" factor comes undeniably into view for even the typical user/consumer.
Or perhaps you would rather only the professional experts be allowed use of teh decimal system of mathmatics and calculations.....?????
There is a diffrence between a piano and a book. But there is also a diffrence between software and a book. In fact, you can write software that actualy does the same thing as a piano.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
not encumbered by FSF or GNU chains
The age of freedom is truly over.
If you say so. You know, as a lawyer who has agressively and powerfully fought on behalf of real government speech impositions in truly egregious situations, I find your oversimplification of the matter laughable. The truth is rather more interesting.
I agree with the implied, if overtrivialized, argument you seem to be making about the Second Circuit's analysis of the first amendment issues in the DeCSS cases. Of this much, however, I am certain -- your unsubtle analysis of an absolutist freedom of speech that does not acknowledge the differences between functional and expressive speech, their respective benefits to society and the balancing of protectible and unprotected expression will never hold sway -- indeed it never did.
You say "the age of freedom is truly over." As you see it, it never began. Copyright and trade secret injunctions have been holdding back expressive speech for hundreds of years now -- and yet somehow most of us have felt adequately free.
The difficulty with the hysterical whining about the Bunner case is this: ALL trade secret injunctions relating to ANY methods bar speech. Duh. If they didn't, there wouldn't be any secrets at all. The issue in Bunner, though not all that popular for some of our technie-co-demagogues as the first amendment argument, which was always difficult for this reason, is whether the reverse engineering was in fact actionable and whether the reverse engineerable content constituted a trade secret. The problem here, is that Bunner lost the fact questions at trial. On remand, he will have solid representation, and hopefully we will see justice in that matter. But frankly, the reductio ad absurdum of the "pure freedom fighters" misunderstands the nature of the law, both on the IP and on the first Amendment side.
I, too, dislike the analysis used by the CA Supremes -- but I am not sure they reached the wrong result legally. I would have explained it differently, but still, I acknowledge the difficulty of these issues. You see things one way, and the judges don't have the convenience of adopting a single ideology and policy in finding their results.
But this much is certain, the whining is the absolute worst, most ineffective form of advocacy. It may make you feel happy, as losers, to whine about "the age of freedom" being over. Me, I prefer to win the day -- and this requires understanding and acknowledging the complexity of things -- and finding an argument that might actually work some day.
The US has a lot of protectionism, and I don't see how environmental protections are a socialist policy.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Just as an example of a right-wing socialist government, the Nazi government stood for "National Socialist". Socialism puts power in collective hands; but the means varies
Nazis were practicing capitalism for hte most part. There was very little socialism. For instance, Germany was pretty much driven by private interests. The vast majority of the owners of the companies and major industries were private (i.e. not govt owned as in socialist or socialist-like states)...
The reason Hitler (and other founders of Nazism) used the word socialism is to get the workers on their side. Workers were very important because they were suffering and whoever they supported would have won...and the Nazism triumped, instead of communism.
National Socialism is as socialist as the Democratic Republic of Korea is democratic... which is to say not much...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Protectionism in and of itself is not socialist. USA DOES have protectionism but that is very minimal compared to the rest of the world, and is insufficient to qualify it as socialist. What IS socialist is protectionism of activities/businesses/institutions/etc that will help workers/environment/etc. USA has A LOT of protectionism aimed at helping large corporations, who are mostly owned by a tiny wealthy group. Such a thing has absolutely nothing to do with socialism. If anything, socialists will dismantle all that right away. In contrast, socialists will accept protectionism of farmers.
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As far as the environment is concerned... pro-environmental policies are considered socialist because they value the environment over commerce/business. This is a key philosophy of socialism. In contrast, capitalism puts commerce/business above the environemnt (as can be seen by the free trade agreements and various other treaties that are signed).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
One more thing... Do note that when environmental policies do not conflict with other things, they are neither socialist nor capitalist. In such a case, politics and economics will not play a role and hence econopolitical systems have nothing to do with it. However, there are rarely any cases where the environment does not conflict with other things. There is nearly always a cost associated with environmental policies.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Direct-to-CNC work has been happening for a while now, but mostly within companies with tightly integrated systems. Only recently has it reached the point where orders are taken on-line.
It's worked well in 2D situations for years - CNC drilling, 3-axis milling, CNC punching. Work that requires setups and reclamping, though, is still tough.
I have always looked at Software like art or literature. You can copyright your specific implementation, but you can not patent it!
Larry, Moe and Curley over at the patent office need to be smacked!
Jamey Kirby
I think you're using quite a broad brush with "socialism". I tried to find some proper references on the internet from which to argue, but they all seem to be kooks and nuts. Anyway, I thought that the distinction between socialism and capitalism was more to do with who has control over the production of goods, so it's not clear how laws such as environmental policy, etc, are "socialist". I think it's a problem of relative perspective. If you think that the market should be the foundation of most or all aspects of society, then I suppose you could claim that any non-market system is "socialist". This would seem to be a strange position (consider the justice system). On the other hand if you consider socialism and capitalism to be nothing more than economic systems, rather than some sort of grand philosophy, then environmental regulations would appear to be sort of neutral.
You bring up another interesting point about the cost of pro-environmental policies. It has been my experience that there is a cost associated with every choice, and such costs are frequently overlooked when they are passed on to future generations. Consider my favorite example of suburban sprawl. On the surface, it would seem that land is cheap, so we can build lots of houses with big yards and have our cities extend for miles and miles. Cars and gasoline are relatively affordable, and people are willing to commute if they can own a nice house at a good price. All of this sounds very attractive. But there is a cost to doing all of this, and that cost will be borne by future generations of homeowners who live in the area.
The problem is that once you lay down roads, they never seem to go away. As decades go by, future incarnations of the neighbourhood will have exactly the same layout; and as things like personal transportation and land become more expensive, the inefficiencies of this design will become very clear. To live in these neighbourhoods, people have to own a car (or something like it), and pay whatever it costs to run it, regardless of how expensive that is. You can't walk to a store to get groceries, you have to drive everywhere - more costs. Public transit isn't feasible, because the population density is always too low - more costs. The list goes on and on, and although right now these problems seem irrelevant (everyone has an SUV, maybe two), in 30 years these will be huge, expensive problems.
You might think that I've diverged a little bit with my rant there, but exactly the same point can be made about environmental regulations. For the most part, those regulations are intended to head off future problems, and it's quite reasonable to expect that those future problems would be much more expensive than the cost of implementing the regulation. If that is the case, how is it a "socialist" policy ? If the regulations enjoy popular support, isn't it simply a case of a majority of people saving themselves the future costs of shortsightedness ?
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Of course it won't hold sway. There are too many people with interests in suppressing speech for it to do so. Robert Bork may well get his way where only political advocacy is considered protected.
With computer programs, there simply is not a viable distinction between "function" and "content". The function of a computer program is determined by its content, and to restrict the publication of a program based on its function is to restrict it based on its content. The courts have been relying on this non-distinction in order to avoid strict scrutiny, which would destroy the DMCA as applied to software. But it is still a non-distinction.
As for Bunner, the appeals court had it right: trade secret injunctions applied to third parties _are_ unconstitutional. A trade secret is only viable as long as all parties who know about it have agreed not to speak about it. The UTSA extends the confidentiality of trade secrets to third parties who have never agreed to it, and in doing so violates the First Amendment. I may _waive_ my right to reveal a trade secret, but my doing so does not waive anyone else's right to do so.
But the courts don't care; trade secrets, copyright, the DMCA, etc, all trump free speech. The courts, particularly in Corley but also in Verizon v. RIAA, appear to be LOOKING for reasons to rule against freedom. Any victories for freedom are short lived (like the Bunner appeals court decision), any losses are long-lasting (like Eldred, like Corley, like the Supreme Court decision in Bunner -- even if Bunner wins on the issues of fact, freedom has lost). It doesn't take a lawyer to see which way the tide has turned.
Whining may be the worst, most ineffective form of advocacy. (And I'm no advocate anyway.) But it is no worse than any of the others. At the end of the day, ALL forms of advocacy, aside from those of the RIAA, fail.
I wasn't denying that CAM is extremely useful, but, in my experience, most complex parts with assembly features like threads and press fits are nearly impossible to specify properly without some kind of 2D information. However, if you make heat sinks or propeller blades you should be able to get away with only giving the CAM machinist an IGES file to load into his 5 axis milling machine.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Not agreeing with the definition of socialism because it is from some "kooks and nuts" :( is like me saying I don't agree with the definition of capitalism because it is from some "kooks and nuts". The people you call "nuts" are probably socialists and probably know about the system than you. I suggest that you revisit those definitions instead of trying to find "proper" definitions. If you are still not satisfied, go back to the original definition which comes from Marxism...
If you think that the market should be the foundation of most or all aspects of society, then I suppose you could claim that any non-market system is "socialist". This would seem to be a strange position (consider the justice system).
You are looking at the results rather than the underlying philosophies. What's important is the underlying philosophies and not the end-result. For example, an anti-war activist and a fascist can beoth be against a war but they are totally different. The anti-war person believes war won't solve the issue (should be a last resort), while a fascist is against the war because they don't want to lose their "own kind" in a bogus war. In the case of socialism, what is important is not the market. Sure, socialism, as well as its derivatives like communism, are against free markets but that is not imporant. In 100 years, there might be a new concept similar to markets (but not free markets) and socialism might still be against that. What is important with socialism is the notion that actions are performed for the common good. That captures the system better.
On the other hand if you consider socialism and capitalism to be nothing more than economic systems, rather than some sort of grand philosophy, then environmental regulations would appear to be sort of neutral.
Socialism=politics+economics; capitalism=economics only. Socialism is more than an economic system. For example, socialism is religion-neutral while capitalism takes no position on religion (since it doesn't delve into areas other than economics).
In any case, even if a system were purely economic, it will impact the environment. There is ALWAYS a cost associated wit hthe environment. Captitalists might try to downplay that or say it is zero but it is there. Therefore, economic decisions will impact the environment.
Just to clarify, I am NOT saying that ALL pro-environemntal policies are socialist. Socialism is not the only system which values the environment. BUT I AM saying that most pro-environmental policies ARE. This is because socialism, along with several other leftist systems, place environment above business (and private interests) and carries out an action for the general public. Let's look at what happens in the modern world.
I'm glad you brough up urban sprawl because that is clearly a modern environemntal issue and will illustrate my point.
Why does urban sprawl occur? The answer is simple. It happens because business interests are valued more than the environment. You say that there is a future cost but there isn't. In case you haven't realized, capitalism puts a cost of ZERO on the environment. Not only that, destroying the environment is generally considered GOOD. This happens because you profit from such actions. Urban sprawl is BIG BUSINESS. A developer, along with the govt, makes tons of money off it. More houses=more property tax/more profits; more population=more workers; more buildings=more wealth for the property owners; etc.
So that's the first point: business is valued over environment. That's why urban sprawl occurs.
The second point is that under a system where actions are NOT performed in favour of the common public, things like that will occur. No one cares what you, your neighbours, or the general public cares. The policies that are implemented are in favour of an individual or a small entity, rather than the general public. If someone was carrying out an action for the common good, urban sprawl w
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
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2) Article 5 appears to determine that software is not affected by patents when it's not executed on a computer. So, you are free to describe how a "patented" algorithm adds 2 litres of fuel in a tank, or to publish the algorithm as code on the Internet or even on a CD-ROM: no limitation on the freedom of expression.
Actually setting the algorithm to work to add two litres of fuel in a tank would be patented, but that is not a question of free speech.
With computer programs, there simply is not a viable distinction between "function" and "content".
Why? Because you say so and feel it supports your position? Or are you just defining what you mean by "function" and "content"? A few years ago, when that argument compelled the 9th Circuit to preclude enforcement of export rules against Professor Bernstein, the distinction seemed very sound. I think it is so today. Clearly there *IS* a different between expressive use of the program and the functional use of the same.
In this sense, a program is no different from any recipe or method specification (unsurprisingly), for which there is well-developed jurisprudence. My problem is NOT that the Courts have adopted those distinctions, but that they have chosen to avoid the well-developed notions to date.
You see this as very easy -- but really haven't supported your statement that there is no difference, except to restate it. I see it as quite difficult and deep, just as, apparently, the California state courts and the Second and Ninth Circuits.
While we wrestle with the problem that seems to require no further thought of yours, feel free to use some of those spare cycles to offer reasons for your distinctions. Theory of Computation seems to have no problem distinguishing between a Godel number or other expressive representation for a function and the function itself, noting for example, and significantly, that there is no bijection between the two. The courts even seem willing to contemplate making legal distinctions of that kind, for sound policy reasons. Why can't you?
As for Bunner, the appeals court had it right: trade secret injunctions applied to third parties _are_ unconstitutional
The Supreme Court isn't final because it is infallible, it is of course only infallible because it is final. On this point, I disagree both with your trivialization of the rule in suit, AND the Supreme Court's analysis. I can see many cases where a party not bound by contract should be held accountable to preserve secrecy. Its just that the instant case probably (facts yet to be developed) isn't one of them.
But the courts don't care; trade secrets, copyright, the DMCA, etc, all trump free speech.
Of course that isn't the law, notwithstanding the amusing demagoguing that seems to be going around in these letters. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose is but one of a kazillion counter-examples.
Whining may be the worst, most ineffective form of advocacy. (And I'm no advocate anyway.) But it is no worse than any of the others. At the end of the day, ALL forms of advocacy, aside from those of the RIAA, fail.
You nihilism is ludicrous. In fact, MPAA couldn't win in Universal Studios v. Sony -- and the Stupid Hollings Bill was, in fact, defeated last year. Each was an example of prevailing advocacy.
Look, if you want to whine, whine. Don't complain, however, that I call your whining what it is, and point out its uselessness for solving our community's problems. You may be right -- my more subtle efforts might well be ineffective in the end as are yours ineffective now. But at least I shall really be trying.
I've really enjoyed our discussion, thanks.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
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