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Torvalds Joins Anti-Patent Attack
canuck57 sent us a story about Linus
Torvalds has joined the chorus of voices speaking out against software patents. Talks briefly about the recent patent releases by IBM & Sun, and notes that there are 'an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 registered software patents in the U.S. alone.'
The Green Party argues that the former patent criteria, which has been abandoned, is adequate in protecting innovation. For example, there's a clause that states that an idea can't be patented if the idea is obvious to a typical practitioner in the field. I recall this from a Green Party interview in a magazine, pardon me for not providing a direct quote.
On this subject, this may be of interest:
Apple patents issued in the last month
As you can see most are for hardware innovations, but there's a few software patents in there too. Given the trend for patenting software it's a good thing too - it gives Apple ammo to deal with other companies challenging them with patent breach allegations. The norm these days is to strike up a cross-licensing deal, so they need such patents for their self-defence.
where do we draw the line between complex and common
The test is that the invention (at the time it was invented) was not obvious to someone skilled in the area/field of the invention. If it was commonly known at the time then it won't qualify. There are other conditions, too, described on the USPTO website. Actually, they say it better than I did: "it may be said to be nonobvious to a person having ordinary skill in the area of technology related to the invention".
EricSome Vioxx spam humor
They will all trip over themselves at some point, and any code you write can always infringe on some software patent.
Here's a proof that any code can infringe on other code (which could be patented).
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
It used to be that patents were granted because of the originality of an idea, and making sure that the inventor gets some return on their amazing ingenuity. A patent like "virtual shopping cart" issued, for example, in the year 2000, would've been completely pointless as there were countless prior art examples. I think patents are bad because of that one type of patent, not that patents are intrinsically a bad idea.
stuff |
Last Nov., Linus co-authored an appeal to the EU opposing software parents. Read it at nosoftwarepatents.com. That's about as clear as you can get, I think.
(By the way, don't forget to thank Poland.)
When they will grant a patent for getting a cat to chase a laserpointer
I think it should be obvious that USPTO doesn't really have the ability to judge whether or not a patent is merited. How can granting patents willy-nilly help things?
For software of all things?
You may be interested to note that the economist Hayek was not entirely persuaded in some respects of the patent system:
... concluded that aside from international pressure, there was no reason to have a patent system - It did no good for the public - and recommended abolishing it if not for international pressure." [http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/danger-of-software- patents.txt]
e s.article]
"I am thinking here of the extension of the concept of property to such rights and privileges as patents for inventions, copyright, trade-marks, and the like. It seems to me beyond doubt that in these fields a slavish application of the concept of property as it has been developed for material things has done a great deal to foster the growth of monopoly and that here drastic reforms may be required if competition is to be made to work. In the field of industrial patents in particular we shall have seriously to examine whether the award of a monopoly privilege is really the most appropriate and effective form of reward for the kind of risk-bearing which investment in scientific research involves."
It has also been argued that software patents in themselves are not economically useful. RMS, in a speech at Cambridge University said:
"... an Australian government study of the patent system in the 1980's
Mitch Kapor (founder of Lotus Corp.) argues that software patents are inherently bad:
"Patents can't protect or invigorate the computer software industry; they can only cripple it." [http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Links/prep.ai.mit.edu/issu
Did he inhale?
"While I don't think he'll ever say it directly, ..."
Since when has Linus Torvalds been afraid of being direct ?
"...this is as clear as he ever needs to be when it comes to his opinion of RMS."
Are you really sure this was aimed directly at RMS ?
RMS isn't just a "person with a vision" - he got off his a*se to do something about the problem he saw (i.e. founding GNU, writing GCC, Emacs, and others), with the aim of helping what were (at that time) everyday computer users.
I really don't see why so many people get off on attacking RMS so often. Maybe it's just because the guy has a different point of view to many people (although, to be fair, RMS appears to have difficulty accepting points of view different to his own).
RMS and Bill Gates both represent extreme viewpoints in the world of software. They remind me of old Tom and Jerry cartoons, where Tom's trying to decide what to do, and a little angel and a little devil come and hover above each shoulder. The angel is all prissy, telling him to do the "right" thing and be pure and good, whereas the devil tells him to be greedy and do whatever he wants. OK, ignore the religious significance (that's really not the point I'm trying to make), but I'm sure you can guess which is which.
It's useful to listen to both points of view, and the arguments on both sides, to decide exactly where your own opinions lie.
Why must you bash RMS? Why must you make it so "Linux vs. RMS" when it doesn't need to be, and, indeed, it isn't?
Did it ever occur to you that RMS was an "everyday user"? That he had a problem "right in front of his face" and he "saw the technical issues" that needed to be overcome (ie, lack of source and drivers for a printer he wanted to use)?
Nathan's blog
for the time being EU will remain free of software patents
:)
more info on groklaw
happy to live in EU
Uh, what about, um, whatchamacallit, Taligant and the Pink operating system?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This is interesting coming from a person who is a co-inventor on three patents held by Transmeta, listed below. All of these patents claim a software component or algorithm that could hamper the process of writing binary translation software. Some of the claims are not even novel (or non-obvious IMHO). This could easily affect open source software like qemu, valgrind and various JIT virtual machines.
Linus' patents:
6,714,904 "System for using rate of exception event generation during execution of translated instructions to control optimization of the translated instructions"
6,615,300 "Fast look-up of indirect branch destination in a dynamic translation system"
6,594,821
"Translation consistency checking for modified target instructions by comparing to original copy"
I think that will never happen. Apple is like Microsoft in disguise. Why did they chose a *BSD kernel? So that they can close it whenever they want.
This is completely confused.
The reason apple chose a Mach kernel (containing much BSD code, but not "a *BSD kernel" in the usual sense of "Net", "Free", or "Open"), is simple: OSX was pretty much taken wholesale from NeXTSTEP (remember NeXT, Jobs' other company [er, besides Pixar]?), and NeXT had used a Mach kernel since its inception in 1987 or whenever; if I remember correctly, it used Mach-specific features fairly heavily too. It probably would have been quite silly for them to use anything other than Mach for OSX, given the circumstances.
I'm sure Apple has some of the typical corporate ambivalence towards Free Software, but they're much better than most -- at the least, they contribute many changes to the gcc/gdb/&c toolchain, and morever, do it properly, and generally act as a "member of the community" in this area.
[I say this with some envy, as an employee of another company that does much internal modification of gcc and other GNU tools, but drags its heels absurdly when it comes to letting those changes be distributed widely -- much to their disadvantage! But corporate conservatism and utterly clueless legal deparments are a sad fact of life at big companies... believe me, Apple is an angel, comparatively speaking.]
We live, as we dream -- alone....