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Alan Cox on Patent Law and GPLv3
tykev writes "Linux kernel guru Alan Cox talks about kernel features, cooperation with hardware vendors, and software patents. From the interview: 'I don't think [Microsoft's patent threats] are the biggest danger. As Microsoft has been finding out recently it is the patent trolls, and organisations with buried patents in interesting areas that are the biggest threat in the USA. The real answer to that problem, however, is to pull the USA back into line with the majority of the world which simply does not recognize patents on software but respects them as literary works subject to copyright law.'"
Microsoft simply can't sue individual OSS developers or users. And anyways, if Samba works the best with Windows, OSX, and Linux, people will still be using MS's "standard". Same goes for Kerebos and any other embraced and extended protocols.
Linux (and OSS) needs to support Windows. To do that, (in theory) they need to infringe on MS patents. It really is in Microsoft's best interests to allow this to happen, as it keeps people on their protocols, and tied in to their software.
The point of the threat was to scare commercial OSS users (the ones that can't take the PR hit of a lawsuit) into buying the Novellisoft "covenant" thingy that people have been bitching about. They never would have even sued those companies the Novell deal targeted. It just doesn't make sense, and would destroy their image even more.
Their plan? They know the power of open-source software. They know how well it works together, and with proprietary software (I think you can even use a Samba server to be a PDC in a Windows domain). They just want to keep people using their software in some form, rather than not at all. (If I didn't want to get sued, I'd force Windows to work with NFS, not Linux to work with SMB, or become an all-ODF shop...) This way, they can still cling on.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
duh!
Then you can't copy paste code , but every time you write a program from scratch you don't end up infringing 2347 vaguely worded patents preventing you from implementing even the most trivial computer tasks.
I think you do not know what patents en copyrights are.
Because that is the closest thing. Paintings, statues, performances(including dance) can all be protected by copyright. Just because a software application has almost no artistic value does not mean it does not deserve the same kind of protection.
If all software were public domain, there would be nothing preventing people from releasing GPL'd software as binary only, and refusing to share the modifications. (because there is no longer anything that holds them to the copyleft license)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I think the argument is that the code itself is subject to copywrite law. So I can't copy your code verbatim without your consent. Fair enough -- the GPL, for example, relies on copyright protection. Patents are a whole different beast, though -- if a programme is patentable, not only can't I copy your code, but I can't even independently implement whatever it is that it does. Which is pretty silly.
In the U.S., literary works are one of the categories of work explicitly protected by copyright. Literary works, in that sense, are defined as "works, other than audiovisual works, expressed in words, numbers, or other verbal or numerical symbols or indicia . . ." Cox' point is that copyright protection is enough; you don't also need patent.
Incorrect. Books are also copyrighted. Everything from the latest Stephen King novel to research material. It's the reason we have to use citations when quoting someone else's work.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
If you have been paying attention, you would notice
little difference between the current admin and Microsoft.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
So, how exactly does a patent collection defend against patent trolls?
The whole idea of the patent troll is that they don't have any business to defend so that they can use their patents offensively without worrying about (non-karmic) retaliation.
*sigh* back to work...
I don't think that patents are an entirely faulty method of protecting software that is innovative. the real reason I feel that they are horrible for software is their 20 year lifespan. compare that to Moore's law. a single lucky patent of the right idea can guarantee you a monopoly for generations of software. 20 years is likely enough to get you sole rights to an idea for all of its useful lifetime. imagine if the patent for the typewriter were to be set to expire next year? as society continues to advance at faster rates the lifetime of a patent needs to get accordingly shorter or it will stifle creativity and slow human advances to a rate set by the lifespan of the patent.
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
Horseshit. There's nothing "organically evolved" about the disaster that is US software patent law. There's one ridiculous appellate ruling, from which the rest of this shitstorm has inexorably followed.
The entire history of time until 1998: for the most part, neither algorithms nor business practices are held to be patentable, since they are both held to be "abstract ideas," which are not patentable. There are exceptions, but they are rare.
The State Street ruling, 1998: Hey, let's change the legal test for patentable software from "causing a physical transformation" to producing "useful, concrete and tangible results". Vague enough for ya? Awesome. And while we're at it, let's also apply the same completely meaningless legal test to business practices, too!
The history of software patents since 1998: One patent on Zocor! One patent on Viagra! SIXTEEN patents by Microsoft of movement and positioning of a cursor! Gee whiz, maybe we should fix this problem. Oh, wait... we wouldn't want to "dismantle organically-evolved law from the top-down", because Anonymous Coward says that such actions always result in DISASTER!
"Dismantle organically-evolved law from the top-down". Fantastic. What the hell does that even *mean*?
All implementations of patents are copyrighted. It is the nature of the thing, so let's stop pretending like this is unique to software algorithms. Chemical process patents are fundamentally indistinguishable from software patents in all respects -- including copyright -- yet we ignore them and their long history. I get the impression that posters on slashdot are so clueless about other fields that they think software is special in this regard.
This issue will not be solved until people accept the mathematical truism that hardware patents and process patents are indistinguishable from software patents; one of the accomplishments of 20th century mathematics was proving that fact. Either we accept that algorithms can be patented or not, recognizing that it is *all* algorithms, or we fumble around with broken law that refuses to acknowledge reality (which would not be a first for government).
Yes, but that has nothing to do with citing the quoted works. Attribution or the lack thereof doesn't factor into fair use.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I don't think that patents are an entirely faulty method of protecting software that is innovative.
Patents don't protect software, whether it's innovative or otherwise. They protect an idea, whether it was incorporated into the patent holder's software or not, and they also deny use of that idea to others, even if it was obtained independently.
And that's why software patents are bad. They freeze advances in that area for fear of litigation on similarity, which more often than not is nothing more than a malicious attempt to prevent improvements on the idea from creating competition.
If you just want to protect the actual software, that's what copyright does perfectly well, without denying progress to others.
You mean like the American Constitution? Look at the current situation---reject it. Think about what you think should be---write it down. Implement (always a tough bit, difficult to get good program managers).
That only worked because the founders were remarkably principled and selfless individuals. If any of them had been Stalin or Robespierre type figures who believed they should have absolute power, the American revolution would have been a disaster like the French one, or the Russian one. Or pretty much any revolution apart from the American one in fact.
Americans are right to celebrate their founders, particularly George Washington. He could easily have ruled until he died and then found some constitutional device to pass power to his heir. As Jefferson put it
"The moderation and virtue of a single character probably prevented this Revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish."
Comparing the first post revolutionary leader to a project manager is disingenous in the extreme. You basically need to have an almost perfect leader in this situation who will allow a system to be set up which will constrain his actions to set a precedent for his successors. It's all to easy to use real and imagined threats to the regime as an excuse to set up a tyranny.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Requiring registration will just lead to the required payment for registration being too high for anyone but the the people who are abusing patents right now to afford it.
And after 20 or so years of seeing their proprietary code reverse engineered and opened up for the public to use, large companies like Microsoft decided that only Software Patents would turn back the rising open source software tide.
Sadly, for all of us, after they subverted the U.S. Patent system for their profit, they still failed to kill open source (is it even theoretically possible to kill an idea?)
I am shocked and impressed to see that someone actually understands copyright law on software. You are quite correct that Altai is the proper precedent here. And because of the merger doctrine and scenes a fair, copyright is very weak for software. That also means the GPL is very weak. The part that the FSF does not address is that copyright may protect only a small part of your source code that is considered unique expression not subject to merger. The GPL protects only that part, and only as far as it is expression and not idea.
Copyright courts often point copyright holders to patent protection to save them.
One other note: Cox says that the rest of the world doesn't allow patents on software. That is entirely wrong. Most do, even the European Union allows them, it just depends on what type of claims you are writing in your patent. You have to know how to draft your international patent claims.
The US revolution a succesful one? Ask a black slave back then, or a Native American.
And I wonder how many of those principled gentlemen had slaves. G. Washington did, I am too lazy to find about others.
As for the success of Revolutions all is relative. You say other revolutios were a disaster, that is clearly bullshit. Revolutions like the Soviet, French and Mexican one allowed hughe swathes of the opressed population to better themselves. You can say whatever you want about Stalin the monster, but once he was gone life in the USSR was immensily better that under Tzarist Russia 100 years earlier, ditto for Mexicans after our Revolution and to a very high degree for France, who became a worldwide power in the 19th century.
The US was in the brink of collapse thanks to a bunch of inhuman racists (whose descendants mantained an apartheid state well into the XXth century. So much for "succeessful" revolutions) defending slavery. The point I am trying to make is tha the US founders were not exceptional, they were flawed as the leaders of any other political movement. The reverence with which they are treated by so many USians reminds me the best days of personality cult in some Eastern BLock countries.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
All implementations of patents are copyrighted. It is the nature of the thing, so let's stop pretending like this is unique to software algorithms. Chemical process patents are fundamentally indistinguishable from software patents in all respects -- including copyright -- yet we ignore them and their long history. I get the impression that posters on slashdot are so clueless about other fields that they think software is special in this regard.
How utterly and completely wrong! The vast majority of "implementations of patents" cannot be copyrighted. And that includes chemicals. You can't copyright a chemical, you can't copyright a transmission block, you can't copyright a transistor radio. You can, however, copyright software, and that right there makes it different.
This issue will not be solved until people accept the mathematical truism that hardware patents and process patents are indistinguishable from software patents; one of the accomplishments of 20th century mathematics was proving that fact.
Oh really? So we mathematically proved that there's no difference between a change-sorting machine and "the concept of sorting", because I can pick up either one and beat you over the head with it until you understand the difference between a concept and a physical object?
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