Slashdot Mirror
End Software Patents Project Comes Out Swinging
Linux.com is reporting that the End Software Patents project is launching several new initiatives to help drive support for their cause. Among the new methods are a web site, a report on the state of patents in the US, and a scholarship contest promising to award $10,000 "for the best paper on the effects of the patentability of software and business methods under US law." "The project is being launched with initial funding of a quarter million dollars, supplied primarily by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Under the directorship of Ben Klemens, a long-time advocate of software patent abolition best-known for the book Math You Can't Use: Patents, Copyright, and Software, the project is being supported by the FSF, the Public Patent Foundation, and the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). One of ESP's goals is to enlist support from academics, software developers, legal experts, and business executives. Its initial supporters show that the project is already well on its way to building such a coalition."
How is that different, really, from patenting "real" items. After all it is just "chiseling wood" or "forging metal" into a new shape...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Whatever you think about RMS and FSF you have to agree that getting rid of software patents would benefit everyone, globally in the software industry. From the commercial hardware vendors, all the way down to the hobbyist BSD developer.
I can't wait for it to happen in the states as I predict it will also trigger the fall in the few countries that also allow software patents.
From a Linux desktop standpoint alone it would finally allow for built in support of DVD, MP3s, etc. Some projects such as GIMP won't have to work around patents to get the features they want built in. Open source driver support might increase..
Even from a closed source perspective Microsoft wouldn't have to worry about getting sued and having to purchase massive amounts of patents to defend itself. They could focus of providing a better user experience without restrictions that patents encumber you with.
Everyone wins... apart from the lawyers..
I can tell you in two words. It sucks. Now pay up dammit!
What?
The software patent lobby is huge even if they are underreported on. Just think about Amazon and how they defend obvious software patents. There are so many patent holders out there right now that have so much to worry about that despite this new organized effort to reform I fear it will not totally solve the problem. There would be "grandfather" software patent clauses or something I would bet...
This confirms what I already suspected - it is brutally difficult to define a software patent. It's one of those problems that seems easy at the onset, but gets more and more complicated the more you think it through.
This wasted half of my day on Friday. But the pulled me back in. Fine. I'll just post my final conclusion: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=470808&cid=22612730
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I'm sure they are in violation of my patent on Method and Apparatus for Advocating Political Viewpoints using a distributed computer network, whereby arguments for said Political Advocacy are stored on a server, and are accessible to interested clients via a web browser using a standard web browsing internet protocol.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
It's clearly defined here
Are they taking donations towards this particular cause? Particularly via some anonymous method, since I'd really love to avoid getting screwed over if my employer found out.
We live in the only period of history where it is possible to get a patent on something you discovered without claiming you invented it. If I found a piece of farming equipment that did some novel thing and I went and applied for a patent on it, I would be asked to declare that I invented it and it is not the work of someone else - to satisfy the no-prior-art test. If, however, I am pulling apart a bacterium or some other living creature, the patent office will happily grand me a patent on its genes - they won't even ask me if I invented these genes because it is assumed that I am just patenting a discovery.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Is there a fund that I can contribute to that will specifically go to the effort to end software and business patents?
https://endsoftpatents.org/donate
Well fuck me with a shovel, those folks are serious.
You can use http://endsoftpatents.org/
Patents are necessary. How else can large companies stifle innovation and crush newcomers?
If you don't support patents you support the terrorists.
..they are an anachronism in the modern world given the nation of China and the "manufacturer for the world" reality. You can get all the expensive and time consuming hardware (or software) patents you want, they'll be broken and violated and for sale with clones and copies or adaptations within a short time now. And that's reality. They do a few showcase busts now and then, like we saw with the cisco clone routers recently...but that's all it is, like the occasional big splashy PR drug bust. A quarter century of the war on some drugs..and what do you see? Same deal with patents and copyrights now, because there is no such thing as a white or gray or black market, there is just a "global market" and that's it.
The best bet today if you invent a new widget, just shut up about it, skip the patent, scrape together the money for a production run, get it out the door and for sale and sold and be done with it and be content with what you can make off of that, go on to your next invention, because after the first run you *certainly* are not going to have an exclusivity to the idea.
It's the old theory and practice. In theory you can get a patent, which is supposed to guarantee some exclusivity for x-years, in practice..just ain't gonna happen, so no sense beating yourself up over it and just working for the lawyers.
So let me get this straight... some of you actually believe that one should not be able to patent software after
1) spending an inordinate amount of time learning how to design, develop (to include programming), test software.
2) spending (nowdays) insane amounts of money to go to a good university (unless you happen to be there on scholarship, where you are spending an insane amount of someone else's money.
Just because you think that it is an idea somebody EVENTUALLY would have come up with? Or the tired arguement that structures and or algorithms involved are prior art?
Does that even make sense, logically? Altruism, while nice I'm sure, along with sharing is caring and all that other happy-happy nonsense, does not pay the bills, put food on the table, or even cover the gas in one's car at the end of the day. When you have individuals who feel they should get something for free, (I'm sorry you feel you should have the choice of free -- which its not (see item 1)) then you need a patent to say no... no I worked too dammed hard just to have the value (real or percieved) pissed away because somebody can't afford it so they want it for free.
Not trying to sound mean or cruel, but honestly that is a lot of time and money loss just to say, you can't patent it because others need to be able to copy it. Bullshit. Nothing is free but air and water (and even that is not free). (And no beer is not free, somebody had to pay for it.)
Regards,
MBC1977,
Yes, to some extent, until someone re-engineers your code. And like patents, not sharing code is considered evil too!
:) , just for the information sake, I too have contributed in my own right to the Open Source community. Here's the link http://xstress.sourceforge.com/ to one of my projects apart from other small efforts of mine.
Though I'm not against Open Source neither against Free Software, I consider it good enough too be able to keep you code closed if you really want to and other people should understand that. I even consider patents not evil until they are not to generic.
The reason that "free" sounds good and tastes good (if you manage to get free beer) is you are not paying for it. But understand that "free" is a very simple term to describe the economics around Open Source and Free Software. Somewhere someone has spent time (thus money) building it and that "someone" has a tummy which he needs to fill up, and he needs money for that.
Before brickbats are thrown at me and I get modded down
The reason for posting the above link it not to boast, as the code and the concept are very trivial, it is there just to show that I'm not against Open Source or Free Software, but just to make a point that Free as in beer is free for you but not for the one who serves it to you.
Therez light! : aHR0cDovL3hrMGRlci53b3JkcHJlc3MuY29t
I think it would be a far simpler solution if patent examiners just enforced the rules already in place, that is you aren't allowed to patent ideas. Then you wouldn't be able to patent "A program that translates text from one language to another" but instead would be able to patent the code that does do that. Obviously you would have to release your code so other people can learn from and build upon it, which is why you get protection. Isn't that the whole point of the patent system? If you expose your trade secrets we grant you a limited time for a monopoly on it.
I know that they have released a statement saying that the scholarship will be open https://endsoftpatents.org/bias-in-academic-papers, but I truely hope that they keep that part of the judging open to public scrutiny, even if the best paper comes out in support of software patents. Don't get me wrong, I hate software patents. However, if they don't keep the judging open to scrutiny for bias, the winning paper will be about as useful as a study into the total cost of ownership of linux vs windows from a Microsoft funded think tank.
Take the ten thousand dollars, multiply it by ten thousand, and use that to fly congressmen and women and senators to luxury resorts; buy the kids and grandkids of same tuition to ivy league universities; get them jobs on the boards of major corporations that pay big money with little or no responsibility... etc. etc. etc. If that doesn't work use the remaining money to find the weaknesses of same and exploit them. Just like the people who are paid to advocate software patents to legislators. Then you will get rid of the software patents. You have to fight fire with fire.
Nice polite little information campaigns and essay contests talking about giving it to the 'man' won't do squat. The only people who will listen to those are the people who already agree with you.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I wouldn't agree that software patents are a bad thing. However almost every time I think of an idea for software it turns out someone has patented it, so I don't bother writing anything.
The problem is that a lot of them are obvious, and a patent isn't supposed to be obvious. Maybe it isn't obvious to someone who isn't a programmer. So, the problem is that too many software patents are obvious, not that software patents bad.
Dear All, It is with amazement that I read of the polarized debate going on in the US. The present US software patenting system is broken and the proposal to abolish software patenting would throw the baby out with the bathwater. The whole of Europe uses a unified system that permits such patents but forces them to jump through rigorous test to cut the crap that is patented in the US and that clogs up the US patenting system and cause endless costs and angst in the software community. In Europe software is patentable only if it has technical effect, is non-obvious and doesn't simply automate a process (to describe some of the constituents) . See for a brilliant simple description : http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/software/epc/ So, for example, a colleague (the inventor) and I patented and made work in principle a revolutionary new way to detect touch which is superior to methods existing, simple and cheap (which Tyco Electronics bought and called acoustic pulse recognition). The method could only be expressed and operated in software . If the software for making that technology work was not patentable, I would not have funded the project and taken the extensive grief over five years and the technology would not have been developed . Even though the returns were modest, such an outcome is necessary to undergo such sweat and tears. By contrast in the US, parties are roving the US patenting or buying up patents for software that covers obvious processes, where the application took five minutes and no risk capital was involved, and then suing people. US industry (especially the vulnerable smaller companies) runs scared of infringement because there is no way of checking all the software patenting filed or applied for effectively to check if you are infringing.. I appeal to your sanity. Just copy the European software patenting system lock stock and barrel and you will live happily ever after in this part of life! Graham Cox
That link doesn't even point anywhere.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
That's not true. Very frequently, the scenario operates like this:
Person A has a need for a piece of software to do X.
Person A creates a piece of software to do X.
Person A is now in possession of a piece of software to do X, and has gained from it - he is "paid" by having something to do X, which he did not have before. He created it purely because he needed it. But he's still got that software. He doesn't need to bury it in a hole. So he releases it for other people to use, and in no way does this cost him anything.
Person B has a need for a piece of software to do X and Y. He takes person A's software, and extends it to do Y as well.
The cycle continues. Each person involved benefits from the existence of the software that they need, which would not otherwise exist. Since they all would have had to create the software anyway (since they needed it and it didn't exist), it costs them nothing to let other people use it. And all of them are better off because they have shared the work, rather than each one duplicating it themselves: giving it away has actually gained them something, it hasn't cost them something.
Behind most successful free software projects is a cycle of individual need and gain like this one.
Didn't some honcho from a certain company from Redmond clearly state that They invented the Internet?
Or was that some failed US Presidential Candidate?
If A creates a piece of software and patents it it also means that B can't do it too even if the implementation is completely different and may be more effective unless B also pays A for something that he never will or want to use just because the end result is the same.
The only persons that benefit from the patents are really the patent lawyers. A will waste a lot of time trying to defend patents and B will not be able to ship product in time. This means that A is wasting energy on time that could have been used to improve A:s products and the same goes for B. During that time C appears and shows up with a completely different solution that wipes out A and B.
A software piece that has taken several man-hours for A to implement may have taken B only an afternoon to implement, so the use of patenting the solution for A may be justified by the amount of man-hours put into the project, but it doesn't give any other clue.
Sure software is intellectual property, but it ages far too fast for the legal processes to catch up with all changes and patches that appears. The real intellectual part isn't a particular piece of software, it's the complete solution. A method for counting eggs wouldn't differ much when implemented by A, B or C, but it's rather pointless to have just that part - it also needs to be incorporated in a larger solution and also added to the customer solution and business model. An egg counter may be used to control the packing machine, but customer D may use a 2x3 egg box and sell them by the piece while customer E uses a 8x8 egg box and sell them by the pallet, which means that the rest of the solution is completely different. OK, if B and C steals A:s egg-counter it may be a "loss" for A, but if they in turn contribute back with something else then A has also gained. (Essentially this happens in the background if the same consultant works for A, B and C. Don't expect that consultant to re-code from scratch what he already have handy. He just re-uses and adapts some specific interfaces so it will suit the overall code.)
In the end - software patents is a lot about forcing other parties to re-invent the wheel instead of accepting that there are different wheels using the same base.
The big catch here is that the ones that really have to pay in the end for patent fees and such things are the end customers, i.e. you and me and everyone else. This includes lawyer fees and all the costs added to bring cases to court, either directly by raising the product price or by taxes. This also means that the products will be less competitive and the competition from east Asia will come in and steamroll the whole market instead.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Thanx AC! My apologies, I posted the incorrect URL. .com instead of .net :)
http://xstress.sourceforge.net/
Therez light! : aHR0cDovL3hrMGRlci53b3JkcHJlc3MuY29t
Wheres the torrent tracker?
The courts tried to equate software to the machine that the software runs on -- a mistake easily addressed by any expert in the CS field. They aren't experts, and they were fooled. It is the computer machine that PROCESSES the software, that creates the possibility for all tasks that can ever run on it. Software is just the language that the machine interprets into action -- just like the recipe that a cook interprets into actual food. Or like the math equation that the mathematician (pre WWII some mathematicians were officially called "computers") applies useful real-world values to.
You can't patent humans, even though they're just processors -- too much "prior art" laying around. Just because you can patent a machine, that doesn't mean you can patent all the software that ever runs on it. The machine itself is the only thing that's truly novel. Everything else is about as novel as the "violets are blue" valentine you wrote recently, that doesn't even compile (she hated it).
If it is written word, it is covered by copyright. The language, encoding, translation and medium are irrelevant.
Copyright law conflicts with patent law.
Software patents are a direct result of the USA's general disregard for international agreements
(whenever there's a buck in it for someone who owns enough senators)
thx e
Patenting software is akin to patenting a recipe for food. It's all done within the framework of something that's already been invented (cooking or computing).
Is there any software invention, that is patented by it's creator, that has improved computing? Now make a list of what harm patents have already caused. Now give that list to the senator, see if he still thinks software patents are for the better.
Here be signatures
what this guy has to say about programming languages is about as valid as my dad saying that no good music has been made since the 1960's.
That's got to be one of the worst analogies ever but I can make it better. A person who's completely ignorant of music history and guided only by some sort of reptilian imprinted taste might think that way about music. Bigotry and science are polar opposites so we should not be bound by these thoughts any more than we are bound by 1970 era machines but the old saw, "those who don't know Unix are doomed to reinvent it, poorly," is still true. For all that, music and software have on fundamental thing in common: both are particular expressions based on mathematical and machine rules.
Software patents are more like business method or math patents (which don't exist outside of software yet!), they steal fundamental and common ideas and are discoveries at best. Like music, these methods are really just expressions of underlying natural patterns and are better covered by copyright. People can express the same things without stepping on each others toes with copyrights. Also like music the basic structures and techniques based on math have been understood for a long time, and have "golden ages" associated with them. Software patents take away the fundamentals and that's just wrong. Music patents, if they existed, would cover such basics as 4 4 tempo, syncopation or the use of strings to produce notes. When you get down to it, software patents are just a silly as that. As End Software Patents points out, programmers never asked for such things. Neither have musicians.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
DVD playback contends with the DMCA, so patents going away would still preclude legal CSS decoding.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Some folks don't like me using the IPR acronym, because they define it as a subversive act to undermine the sharing of knowledge.
...). Institutions have no intellect (reality) and have no reasonable claim to intellectual property created by an individual, group, community. Protect the freedoms of the artists, intellectuals, innovators ... from exploitation by legal fraud and corporate/government hubris. In the USA this would (maybe) indicate an amendment to The USA Constitution, but it would protect IPR, for the individual, from corporate sponsored federal/state laws allowing seizure of personal intellectual property.
...), (2) communal (genetics, food, ...).
... any leading plutocrat, servile political/dogma minion, and/or their complete family and all friends; However, IPR and HPR can never die or be subjugated forever to the exploitation of the few. IOW: If I were (I might be?) a plutocrat or minion, then it would be in my best interest to be smart and reasonable for the sake of everyone.
... RPR when applied to IPR/HPR restricts and retards economics, education, science, math ....
... for all humanity. When RPR uses IPR/HPR and value/profit is generated, then (arbitrated/contracted) IPR/HPR proportional value should share, because the RPR products/systems would not exist without the human contribution, indicating (for me) the human contribution exceeds the business RPR contribution; So, after the (energy, material, marketeer ...) bills are paid, about one half of the remainder should be split between the IPR/HPR holders and the government for protecting the IPR/HPR for humanity.
FMP - IPR should only be owned by the individual (prevent buying and selling) who created it, and allow lease (agreements/contracts) to institutions (schools, businesses, governments, religions
Under property rights (FMP) there are three specific types IPR, HPR, and RPR.
IPR - Intellectual Property existence is due to the field of human/sentient intellect and endeavor (includes theory/design).
HPR - Human Property existence is due to individual rights: (1) personal (speech, beliefs
RPR - Real Property existence result from the known laws of application science and physics (includes modified/aggregate materials).
The U$ and EU (no need to mention RU/CN) leading plutocrats and servile political/dogma minions may present IPR and HPR as RPR, but then possibilities are (historical facts) you can always torture, burn, behead, lynch
The difference between magic and science is knowledge. IPR and HPR keep knowledge "Open" to everyone equally for use, innovations, advancements
One last point is - all IPR and HPR should be "Open" (no fees/encumbrances) to use, research, innovation
I follow the laws of the land I live in, but I will never accept the present IPR laws as anything more than dejure/fiat exploitation, much like feudal lords (them U$, EU, other plutocrats) and peasants (US, EU, others).
FMP is used for "From My Perspective" "For My Principles"
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Guess who will win :/
http://economie.moldova.org/stiri/eng/39281/ says
"The U.S. legal system imposes a cost of $865 billion a year on the
U.S. economy, or $9,800 a family"
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html
says GDP (official exchange rate): $13.79 trillion (2007 est.)
So about 6% of the USA's economy is flushed down the drain that is the US legal system.
It would be interesting to see a chart of how the legal costs have been raising (or falling) over time. Maybe it's not so scary as many of us think, or maybe it's worse.
.... software.
....use this as an analogy to those wanting proof of software patent damage (uh, err maybe it won't be damaging this way.....)
A similar slashdot story was just the day before see: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/29/0344258
Honestly, this call for papers and award is along the lines of asking for more on top of what we already have, proof that going against nature will bring you harm.
i.e. step off the empire state building...you will fall and die. Drive a car into a solid wall @ 500 mph, you will die.
Make software patentable and you will suffer the consequence of contradicting nature just the same.
People are born everyday with a blank slate of knowledge, but do all these new people do things that kill themselves, so to find out it will kill them? NO!
So how much do we need to harm ourselves with software patents before those making it possible to patent software and contradict nature, learn?
see:Abstraction Physics as the subject matter is fundamentally NOT about politics or economics, as organized crime has both a good economy and politics, but it doesn't make it honest and genuinely in touch with physical reality such that you can drive a car into a wall @ 500mph and live.
This software patent matter is really getting to be stupid on stupid. Software classification is not a human choice, but a human mental characteristic, and even stupid proves it.
Has anyone shown proof that driving a car into a wall @ 500mph will kill you, to those allowing software patents?
If not, then why are they not finding out for themselves?
If so then someone should point out that they should try 499mph to find out if it makes a difference. (re: all the abstract possibilities of proof for or against software patents)
Its really amazing how much money is being spent on such distorted efforts rather than producing the proof that software is not of patentable qualities.
Everyday we now read about new software patents for stupid ideas like ordering a product online by pushing a button on a web page, etc...
Patenting vague ideas will cripple progress and innovation of REAL patentable concepts. There are good ideas out there for innovation but are now sidelined by fear of penalty by broadly vague concept patents.
As stated before in other posts, time durations also need to be revised.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
Method of Shovel Fucking has been patented by someone, and the royalty is too high. As is Method and Device for Gagging With a Spoon.
Well, do you mean make it actionable for large companies to copy those ideas, or do you mean actually preventing such copying?
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
Preventing copying, of course. Isn't this the reason patents were created in the first place?
how the American patent system affects us in foreign countries. Say, if I sell my software online, can software patents granted in the US lock me out of the American market?