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Open Source Life?
JimCricket writes "What happens when a bio-cracker unleashes a plant virus on all the wheat in North America, and the genetic code to 'Wheat 2.0' is closed-source, patented code owned by a corporation? Should life be Open Source? Download Aborted takes a look at this issue."
I'm not a lawyer or biologist, but it may be interesting to compare this issue to what's going on in the software industry. There are some clear similarities between genetic code (the blueprint for lifeforms) and software code
I disagree. Genetic code is a mapping of biological cells used to translate RNA codons, and is representational of a natural reality. Software code implements programs or data for some purpose, but is creative. There is a fundamental difference between the two, IMO.
Sigs cause cancer.
Don't mistake DNA and software. When someone creates a virus will we be able to fix it quickly and minimize its effects?
We don't understand DNA as well as we do code. For now closed is better.
sig
what prevents a bioterrorist from grabbing a sample of regular wheat and making a virus for it? where is the new vulnerability?
corporations which're indulging in despicable patent activities, often at the cost of developing nations and in atleast one case farmers who've been using the so called "innovation" since thousands of years. Case in point: India Fights U.S. Basmati Rice Patent .
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
http://guerrillanews.com/contaminated/
Excellent video (QT) link to the right of that page.
I thought the main reasons to be open source was so that
1)you can get help from developers across the world and
2)so that the code can be scrutinised by many eyes and bugs can be very quickly patched.
without a myriad of good guys being able to scrutinise the genetic structure of the plants the badguys are more likely to find an unpatched weakness, opposed to having to disassemble and map the plants genetic structure first.
This raises the question:
is open source only effective when there are more good guy than bad guys?
How many computers are too many?
>> What happens when a bio-cracker unleashes a plant virus on all the wheat in North America...?
Probably a lot of poor people are going to die.
This actually might happen, we dont have vast ammounts of knowledge on this subject, we are just learning, but if something goes wrong nobody can predict the results. Genetics are great for mankind, but quite dangerous if misused
Check out Website development, maintenance and accesibility cons
You do realize that you're effectively creating a race of genitic slaves among your offspring. What if one of your great grandchildren don't wish to be covered by the LGPL?
The blogger is misusing the term "open source". All patented works are open source, but still proprietary, not "free". Also the code of any organism can be read by performing PCR on its nuclear DNA. True, this is equivalent to assembly language, but it's currently the only language we have for genetics.
(Side topic: Whoever creates a high-level genetic language and compiler will either win the Nobel prize immediately, or be burned at the stake. Or both.)
The problem is abusive patents. The Schmeiser loss completely blew my mind. Canada has given carte blanche for Monsanto to (secretly) shoot their wad over the entire country, then charge royalties on every farmer. Patented food crops go way Way WAY across the line of human decency, but our wonderful nations of Freedom(tm) say it's a great business model.
Words fail me. I can't properly describe how insanely awful this is.
Why does this immediately remind me of a new brand of antivirus software that would appear to take advantage of (read as: extort) the same type of situation?
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
You're absolutely right: the problem is distribution. Unfortunately, evil corporations are not to blame. Whiny, ill-informed europeans are at fault. Thanks to their irrational and ill-formed opinions on GM food, millions of tons of corn that the US donated to africa were turned away a few years ago, for fear of contaminating native strains. Millions of people continue to starve to death.
A frenchman will eat a piece of unpasteurized cheese that's crawling with cooties; a japanese person will gamble their life eating possibly deadly fugu; these people are experts on food safety? Fuck that.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
Although the courts seem commercially biased, all farmers that grow non-mod'd crops have a basis for lawsuit due to the negligence of Monsanto (and other GMO companies) to control their product. They have, in fact, lowered the value of the farmer's infected crop and (if the farmer grows his own) future crop's seeds. Although in practice this position is absurd (cross-pollination happens regularly depending on land configuration and the wind patterns/strength) the current ruling leaves this argument open for usage (IMO).
I officially put my own genetic code under the terms of the LGPL. You can redistribute me and my clones as you like...
Funny post, but it brings up an interesting point. Biotech companies are patenting gene sequences all the time. What's to *stop* you, or me, or CowboyNeal from filing a patent for "A unique sequence of genetic material such that will produce a particular individual, to wit, me?"
Do the biotech companies know the exact sequence of GTCA's in the genes they patent? If not, then I don't see any reason a human individual couldn't patent his/her/hir own 46 chromosomes (+/-).
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Now, personally, I'm of the belief that if Schmeiser arrived at his particular seed crop genetics through natural selection (which appears to be the case from my cursory research) then he should be allowed to make use of that crop HE developed naturally. But it appears that the law's viewpoint is that he knowingly developed "Roundup" proof crops to specifically use Monsanto's "Roundup" herbicide without paying them a license fee. That's definitely a violation of existing patent law.
Makes me wonder. If someone wrote a virus, that also happened to have a piece of patented code in it, say IBM's. Could IBM then sue everyone who was infected?
Non gratis rodentus anus
Tom Clancy writes new novels. He doesn't take a Shakespeare play, put in a few tactical missile strikes, and charge you $8.99 for the privelege if reading it.
This, on the otherhand, is exactly what people who patent genetically modified organisms. If they created their own organism from scratch it would be a different scenario. And we wouldn't worry about suing them, we would be praying to them every Sunday.
:wq
What he doesn't say is something that I found in following the link canadians.org to the information page on this issue, there you can find a link to the Judgement from May 21, it found that:
Sounds to me that they found it in a little more than that ditch as he claims. It's still an interesting read, and does raise some good questions. Like "who owns life"The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
ok forgive me for being naive, or redundant
but if it doesnt matter how the genetic material got there, what is to stop corporations, competing farmers, drunk football players with no cows to tip, etc from just going around spreading seeds in peoples fields and tipping off the 'authorities'? to destroy random people?
sounds like a system begging to be exploited
And what about the claim that they send people over in planes to drop Roundup on fields? If it destroys a 30 foot circle do they just say "Ooops!"?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It is nearly impossible for a private citizen to obtain a handgun permit in Canada other than for target shooting or collecting, but long guns are permitted. As of a few years ago, you need a federal firearms permit to possess long guns. It isn't too hard to get. I have one, and three rifles. For defense in a rural situation a handgun wouldn't be that great anyhow since even if you know what you are doing they aren't accurate at any distance. For dealing with trespassers a shotgun loaded with buckshot or salt would probably be the best choice. Your aim doesn't need to be very accurate and the chance of killing someone is low.
Although there may be other reasons to be wary of genetically modified organisms, the problem here isn't unique to GMOs. It arises in any situation in which the public good requires the release of proprietary information. This can happen with chemicals, and probably with various mechanical and electronic devices. For example, back in the 1960s my father, a neurologist, handled a case in which a farmer had been overcome by the fumes of a farm chemical (a pesticide, I think) and needed to know what was in it in order to treat him. The manufacturer refused to tell him, claiming that it was a trade secret. Fortunately, my father was able to get the state government to act. The attorney general called the president of the manufacturer and told him that if he didn't provide the information he would do everything in his power to make sure that that company never did business in the state again.
- Patent = a new solution to an old problem? Good patent.
- Patent = an old solution applied to a new problem? Possibly a bad / stupid patent.
But in the case of most of these life patents, they've patented an old solution to an old problem: there isn't any novelty there.They're patenting "method to find gene for making dragonfly wings as used by dragonflies in flying," which was only novel about, say 300 million years ago. Now if instead they were patenting "method for gene for making dragonfly wings added to tomatoes so they fly straight to the harvest box" that would be a new and original idea.
And in agricultural patents they've been able to patent genes / traits that were previously developed by groups of farmers. i.e. its like they're not only violating the GPL, but patenting the software they've borrowed.