Slashdot Mirror
Richard Stallman: Limit the Effect of Software Patents
An anonymous reader writes "We can't get rid of software patents, says Richard Stallman, but we could change how they apply to creating and using software and hardware. In an editorial at Wired, he advocates for a legislative solution to the patent wars that would protect both developers and users. Quoting: 'We should legislate that developing, distributing, or running a program on generally used computing hardware does not constitute patent infringement. This approach has several advantages: —It doesn't require classifying patents or patent applications as "software" or "not software." —It provides developers and users with protection from both existing and potential future computational idea patents. —Patent lawyers can't defeat the intended effect by writing applications differently.'"
Stop blaming the lawyers and start blaming the people who ask them to file the lawsuits. It is like blaming the engineers that build an M1 tank, rather than the military that buys and operates it.
As usual, he's right. Cue the morons who ignore him because they don't like him personally.
There was one thing that stuck out at me, though:
Anyone got a citation for this, that Congress does not have the power to limit patents which already have been granted? AFAIK patent exist completely at the pleasure of Congress.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I'd like to know what the definition of "generally used" computing hardware is. The PC is (for now) an open platform, so I could see it as being "generally used". But what about iPads? Car computers? Game consoles? Would this legislation lead to a paradigm shift of ever-more-closed systems to protect patents?
The lawyer scumbags you are protecting should have the moral fortitude to turn down these bad cases, just like the slime-ball engineers you speak of should refuse to work on said death-machines.
My issue with software patents are that inventors have the tools to create just about anything in their own home. Anyone could have created Facebook, JPG rendering, one-click purchase with simply a laptop. If software patents were music, it would be like patenting piano music. Press the keys in a certain way (which anyone will eventually do who plays piano at all) and .. oops... you just violated a patent. Press keys in an arbitrary other pattern and viola... instant patent and license to pester future composers with your "invention".
There's nothing non-obvious with just about any software. Developers should not have to worry about the dark legal cloud of patents hanging over them for something literally anyone could create with readily available tools in their own home. That very fact should make it obvious why software patents should not exist. People don't accidentally find a cure for cancer in their basement with their Junior Chem Lab Set which is why patents do have a place in general.Even worse is the fact you could be unknowingly violating a patent without even knowing it and the system purposely allows patent holders to wait around until inventors start to actually profit from their inventions and THEN start suing. The fact that patent holders can even have patents without even having a real product simply shows the system isn't about stimulating and rewarding invention but stirring up revenue for government agencies and legal firms.
Runesabre
Enspira Online
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, lawyers gotta sue. See "The scorpion and the [frog/turtle]".
That requires voting for people who will create the required legislation. It won't happen with the current crop we reelect now.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This might not be explicitly removing software patents, but in effect that sounds like what would happen. What would the point of software patents be if this made it so nobody could ever infringe on one?
Maybe this kind of indirect approach is exactly what is needed to blend in with other legislation.
I'm not against it at all, but II really would like to understand how Stallman's proposal would apply to, say, the following example (one I've used before):
Suppose we take something like the FM demodulator in a radio. When Edwin Armstrong invented it, back in the stone age of the 1930s, I think we can all agree that (a) it was an "actual physical device," and (b) that it met all the other criteria (novelty, non-obviousness, utility, etc.) needed for a patent. It was implemented with the technology available at the time -- stone knives, bear skins, vacuum tubes (valves), and a transformer.
Skipping over details like the invention of ratio detectors, phase-locked loops, etc., the next change in implementation of FM detectors came when the tubes were replaced with discrete transistors. This required some change in bias methods, impedance levels, etc., but no major redesign. It did save cost, size, and power, though.
The next change was integration. At first, the transformer was still needed for the demodulator, and so it was pinned out of the ICs, which were still analog. This saved cost, size, and power still further.
Later, schemes were found to integrate the function of the transformer, fully integrating the (still analog) demodulator. This saved cost and size still further.
Still later, improvements in integration processes enabled the function of the FM demodulator to be performed digitally, using an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and a bunch of hard-wired logic gates, emulating the mathematical function performed by the analog demodulator. This saved cost, size, and power still further.
Demodulator designs were next ported into programmable hardware dedicated to signal-processing applications (digital signal processors); this required the ADC, plus the algorithm converted to the DSP's assembly language. This saved cost and size.
After that, demodulator designs were moved into hardware register-transfer languages, like Verilog, providing portability from chip to chip using standard-cell logic families. This saved cost.
Later, the Verilog designs were ported into field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), enabling one to program the hardware in the chip to become, when preceded by the ADC, an FM demodulator. This saved cost.
Finally, technology improved to the point that the FM demodulator could be made by an ADC followed by a microcomputer, programmed with software in a high-level language as part of a much larger system. This saved cost.
At what point in this development do we draw the line and say, "Below this, it's not patentable (or patent infringement)?" Where is "software"?
If you can unknowingly break some patent without even realizing its there, its a sign of a patent being awarded for something that should not be patentable in the first place.
Patents for a vague idea, or a general approach of implementing it - do not want.
I'll re-troll, since IHBT
...It's like blaming the engineers that build an M1 tank, rather than the president and congress that tells them where and what to shoot.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
I think this approach gives judges the freedom to apply a basic test on any attempt to enforce a patent... "Is the dispute based on the implementation of a software product and does the software product run on a generic platform where many hundreds of different development shops target for their own products?" If both of these questions can be answered with "Yes" then the dispute is spurious.
With this, I think iPods and Servers remains novel but Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops, and Desktop software will be freed from worrying about patent attacks.
Or when he's in a plane:
Stall? Man...
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
The things you cannot patent, universally accepted:
Physical Phenomenon, Natural Law, Abstract Ideas and out of these we also have Mathematical Algorithms. Certainly Software can be proven to not qualify for patent-ability, http://abstractionphysics.net/ or add dot net to it for the reality of which the fictional trilogy "the matrix" characters were representations of. In other words, we all use the fundamental actions of which software must make use of in playing back what amounts to nothing more than the physical phenomenon of the natural laws of our creation and use of abstract ideas, which include the well defined abstractions of mathematics. All done on a machine that processes abstraction.
Why has this not come to light? Nature likes 3, as in three primary colors of paint or light, etc. from which you can create all other colors of that media. Software has three user interfaces. The CLI, GUI and the side door port to automating software use, including its creation. However this third user interface is kept from the general user, limiting what the general user can do. For the user to have such access is in analogy like giving users a decimal calculator when the accountants are using roman numerals. A great deal of what software patents cover today would become non-novel and invalid.
Bill Gates said the way to become wealthy is to make people need you. He was also the one to coin the term "software piracy"
And there you have the reason for the fraud of software patents.
Don't be naive - patents may have their roots in Anglo-American law but they're a global phenomenon and, given the reach and influence of the US legal system, a global problem.
This would be true if there was limitless work for lawyers, and they could simply choose the most lucrative work. But that's not the case—lawyers, like contractors in any industry whose opportunities are affected by the laws the government writes, have a vested interest in supporting laws that increase demand for their work. Diamond v. Diehr could as easily have been called the Legal Profession Full Employment Act of 1981.
1 except in the cases of "separable" claims a patent does not apply unless ALL Claims apply (separable claims are only allowed for Common Sense type things like use in Fixed , Mobile Air , Mobile Water and Mobile Land)
2 in cases where another company has produced a product covered by the patent you have 90 days to start the suit or this product is to be considered "Prior Art" unless 1 you have no way of knowing about the conflicting product 2 You have produced a Product and included a "Covered by The Following Patents : %list%" block
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
The scorpion and the turtle
Damn, they have armor-piercing scorpions now?
Use of the words "good", "bad" or "evil" is almost invariably the result of oversimplification.
Stop blaming the lawyers is the first step on the road to hell. They are guilty of something, by definition, if there is a law that could be twisted or corrupted for their profit, they will, no matter what comes after, they got their pay. And politicians, of course, that because malice or idiocy do those laws (also, some are lawyers or take lawyers advice, see previous point). In your example, is the difference between designing a gun and using it, the lawyers in this case are the ones using guns, and actively killing people with ideas.
And all of this without even going to the point of patents. The whole concept that thinking and solving problems by your own is potentially a minefield is wrong. Our very civilization and culture is built taking ideas from others, and using/copying/adapting/improving them, we wouldn't be even in caves without that.
Stop blaming the lawyers and start blaming the people who ask them to file the lawsuits. It is like blaming the engineers that build an M1 tank, rather than the military that buys and operates it.
Yeah! The lawyers are just exploited innocents! There is a demand for evil, and they are only supplying that demand. Is that so evil? Of course not!
It's the same reason why drug-dealers, car thieves, and human traffickers aren't really evil, they are just supplying a demand.
To promote the progress of the useful arts, remember?
You can look at how Shaespeare turned a phrase, or Colleridge placed a metaphor, or Stephen Donaldson put two hundred and eighty severn adjectives together in place of one noun, and learn from it.
Because you read the book.
Well, you should be able to do the exact same thing with code.
Anytime a law increases the available work, it is an additional cost (tax?) to the population. Representatives of the people should work to keep costs (including those the government doesn't benefit from) at a minimum.
Most countries don't have software patents, why not simply get rid of them? The first quote from RMS states they can't get rid of software patents, why not? Everyone else has.
Stop blaming the lawyers and start blaming the people who ask them to file the lawsuits.
That's the "we were just following orders" argument and it is pretty flimsy. Basically it is arguing that they have no responsibility to consider whether their actions might be harmful before proceeding. While it is probably true that the lawyers are not the proximal cause of the problem, they do bear at least some of the blame even when they aren't the ones filing suit. Lawyers always can decline to accept the case if they believe it lack merit or be unethical.
Furthermore the lawyers themselves are often the ones responsible for initiating the legal actions. There are plenty of patent trolls who have little or no technical expertise or production capacity. They only exist to threaten others with lawsuits and collect royalties.
Perhaps a device where the typical user can execute programs other than those supplied by the manufacturer.
The includes your PC, smartphone, tablet
It includes the vast majority of smartphones and tablets that run the Android OS. But it does not include iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone 7, Surface, or certain models of Nook Tablet. These devices have a centralized app store operated by the manufacturer or operating system publisher and lack an easily reachable counterpart to the "Unknown sources" checkbox in Android.
It is completely obvious how to write software to produce a bouncy elastic effect to indicate inability to scroll.
What Apple argues is non-obvious is the use of a bouncy elastic effect in the first place. My Nexus 7 uses a blue glow at the top and bottom of a document, or a 3D rotation of the entire page on the home screen or the gallery.
billions and billions of FPGAs have been sold, over the last 30 years, for just about every computing application one could name.
How many of these FPGAs have been sold in a device where the user is encouraged to control what fusemap runs on the FPGA? The only one I can think of is the PowerPak, a CompactFlash adapter for the Nintendo Entertainment System that uses the FPGA to provide memory mapping and raster timing services to the running NES game.
Anyone could have created Facebook, JPG rendering, one-click purchase with simply a laptop.
So what? Anyone can create a machined part in their house with a drill press which costs less than most laptops. The fact that the tools are readily available does not have any bearing on whether something made with them should be patentable. Furthermore the mere fact that in theory "anyone could have created Facebook" is belied by the fact that only one person actually did create Facebook. Just because others possess the technical skill to do something doesn't matter at all with regard to the novelty, obviousness or utility of an invention. I know how to machine all sorts of parts with a milling machine but it doesn't logically follow we shouldn't allow patents on machined parts because I theoretically might have come up with something that someone else created.
Don't get me wrong, I agree completely that software patents are an incredibly bad idea. I'm just arguing that your line of reasoning isn't a compelling argument against them. Patents were created to provide an incentive for creative works in the face of the Free Rider Problem. Software patents have the same net effect of stifling innovation as allowing Free Riders. In both cases you are removing economic incentives to create new works. Both make it economically pointless to try to bring products to market.
in cases where another company has produced a product covered by the patent you have 90 days to start the suit or this product is to be considered "Prior Art" unless 1 you have no way of knowing about the conflicting product 2 You have produced a Product and included a "Covered by The Following Patents : %list%" block
I believe this is already covered under laches, except that the period beyond which a presumption of intentional harm is imputed longer than that.
If his proposals are such a good idea, how come nothing has been picked up by a legislator?
Because legislators represent their campaign donors, and the pro-patent lobby has more money to spend on donations than the anti-patent lobby. It's the same reason why anti-copyright candidates never get elected to the U.S. Congress: news coverage is an in-kind donation from the MPAA-affiliated TV news outlets.
These stupid laws were written by lawyers for lawyers and I'm supposed to blame someone else. How about I blame all the lawyers in congress, every IP lawyer and those handful who are suing people.
How is that "by definition?"
Yes, representatives should do this. However, we have to hold their feet to the fire, or they won't. Currently, we are doing a really crappy job of holding their feet to the fire, and we're seeing the unfortunate results in stupid laws like the current software patent regime.
It is completely obvious how to write software to produce a bouncy elastic effect to indicate inability to scroll.
What Apple argues is non-obvious is the use of a bouncy elastic effect in the first place. My Nexus 7 uses a blue glow at the top and bottom of a document, or a 3D rotation of the entire page on the home screen or the gallery.
Maybe, but this is granted a temporary monopoly in return for absolutely nothing, because the bouncy elastic effect cannot feasibly be a trade secret.
Stallman's idea is very compatible with a notion of reversing the reversal of the original intent of patents that has happened in the modern corporate business environment.
The main necessity of patents in the past was specifically the differential between the capabilities of the individual or small company, and the large established company, to take a concept from initial concept/implementation to large-scale production. That differential was, in large part, the reason why the market in itself was not trusted to sort out the situation. The inventor was the source of the product, but apart from an enforced "protected time period", established industry could simply take the idea and immediately outproduce the inventor, due to the very nature of mass-production and distribution of physical goods, thus "winning" via the basic nature of that market.
Arguably, in software this core rationale for patents no longer applies. Reproducing the invention (e.g. copying the files) costs essentially nothing, and so no entity has a pre-existing "unfair advantage" in transitioning a new product from the point of initial creation to the point of mass-production.
In the absence of this differential, we have the spectacle of modern patents, where it is no longer used to help the "small company" (or individual) against the "big companies" in addressing this production-capacity differential, but instead are used by large corporations against other large corporations, neither of which has any differential in intrinsic capacity needing to be addressed. The net result is preventing public-benefitting "inventions" from being used by anyone except their corporation, when it doesn't have the effect of stopping any benefit from the innovations at all--due to the risk of creating anything with armies of patent-troll lawyers laying in wait.
So... yeah. Agreed. Software -is- different. And it is different in precisely the core attribute that justified patents in the first place.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
You have that backwards. If you're making the analogy between lawyers and mercenaries and saying the blame should be on the people who hire them, then you wouldn't blame the mercenaries' parents any more than you would blame tank engineers; you'd blame the people whoever hired the mercenaries. It really isn't the best anology.
Give me a fsckin break. It was the scum bag lawyers that wrote the BS patent laws in the first place.
Lawyers write convoluted and complicated laws. Lawyers then interpret those laws in precedent setting arbitrary ways that no reasonable adult would derive from the text of said laws. Then lawyers charge people for interpreting and exploiting those laws. It's a vicious cycle. Every bullshit lawsuit is possible because of lawyers, was advised by a lawyer, executed by a lawyer, and presided over by a lawyer.
Without lawyers legal documents would be as clear as any other written work and you wouldn't need lawyers. Without lawyers people trying to exploit bs technical errors in the wording of a document could be tossed out or punished. Without lawyers juries would still have the final say in what happens to their peers with no exception.
Those representatives are generally lawyers and if they aren't they have staffed lawyers doing their work for them or both.
Next you are going to insist that legislation only be passed in small readable length modules of 50 pages or less and that it be written in common English rather than legalese.
Software is the only "work" or "thing" which can arguably be both patented and copyrighted, depending on the scope and context. This literally begs for a completely different approach, but many in power seem stuck on trying to fit a square peg into a circular hole.
Patents last way too long 20 years from the filing date is what it says .. but if the patent office takes long to approve it then you get to tack on that time too. There are still patents on HDTV that were filed in the 1990s that have not even been issued yet! When they get issued they will get about 18 or 19 years from the issue date. .. the patent system is a joke!
Companies deliberately delay the approval of their patents to take advantage of this loophole. The loophole was made for pharmaceuticals (FDA approval can take a decade), but tech companies are taking advantage of it too. Couple that with the fact that you can now patent stuff that other people invented before you thanks to the change from FI to FITF
The blue glow (or water effect) is a workaround. My Samsung SG2 came with the bouncy effect and got the water effect with an update later on, when Apple started suing Android manufacturers. By the way, that patent has been ruled invalid by the USPTO a few days ago http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/10/patent-office-tentatively-invalidates.html (it's a preliminary non final decision).
That said, I agree with you that the cause/effect relationship between can't-scroll/bounce-page might be non obvious. After one year I'm still not sure what I prefer, the bouncing or the watery effect. The bouncing is playful but it moves what you're trying to read. The water effect is a little dull but steady. One of the points made by others is that after you see the page bounce once you know how to implement it (but getting an animation that feels good can be tricky). This can't be kept secret, it's not the recipe of Coca Cola, so maybe against the spirit of patenting stuff.
It's kind of sad that people would still put drug dealers on the evil list.
Empowering an individual to execute their RIGHT to choose what they want to put in their body is not evil and certainly doesn't belong on the same line with car thieves and human trafficking.
Unless you are referring to the crimes which are not drug dealing that sometimes happen in the black market drug trade? Drug prohibition is responsible for those crimes not drug dealing. Get rid of prohibition and drugs would be produced by farmers and legitimate labs and drug dealers would be Walgreens, CVS, and an isle at the grocery store. Sort of like what happened to the market for alcohol after prohibition. Hopefully when we stop outlawing other drugs we won't attach extra and unreasonable taxes on them like we do to Tobacco and Alcohol though.
Stop blaming the lawyers is the first step on the road to hell. They are guilty of something, by definition, if there is a law that could be twisted or corrupted for their profit, they will, no matter what comes after, they got their pay.
I know. Shakespeare definitely had it right! Especially these guys! Money grubbing scumbags, the lot!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
haha ya d00d drug dealers are nice guys hahaha
Also seatbelt laws are unjust! I have the right to not wear a seatbelt - oh wait.
Let's not paint with too wide a brush. While I agree there's lots of morally bankrupt lawyers, and like banking it does seem to be a field that attracts such individuals and likely facilitates the corruption of it's morally borderline members, lets not forget that there are also *honest* lawyers, and they're the ones standing in defense of innocent people who would otherwise be steamrolled by the legal system, and fighting for the civil liberties which would otherwise have long since been lost to a power-hungry bureaucracy. And those individuals deserve our thanks and respect, doubly so because they manage to stand tall in the face of the ever-present corrupting temptation of the disproportionate wealth, fame, and power that their profession offers it's less morally steadfast members.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It's kind of sad that people would still put drug dealers on the evil list.
Empowering an individual to execute their RIGHT to choose what they want to put in their body is not evil and certainly doesn't belong on the same line with car thieves and human trafficking.
Whoa there let's not get carried away here. A lot of drug dealers are not just evil because they sell drugs, they're evil because they often sell a product that has no safety standards, and in some cases they sell or are even responsible for cutting the product with things that are even poisonous just to sell more white powder or crystals.
If you are talking about the legal growers of pot, who have to follow safety standards, you may have a point, but those guys are few and far between. Most dealers are in it for the money, and them being amoral is about the best you can say about them.
You say the patent system is doing what it's supposed to.
My impression was that the patent system was supposed to give a strong, limited-time monopoly to inventors--in return for exposing the implementation details rather than keeping it a trade secret.
Do you think software patents do this?
My impression is that software patents (if allowed at all) should include complete source code for the implementation. Also, I see quite a few software patents of the form "do *this* in software" where *this* is a high-level description of what is happening. That seems to me excessively broad....it seems like it should need to be "do *this* by following these specific algorithmic steps". If someone else does *this* some other way then the patent has not been infringed.
and I get paid well do it.
There are many, many things that we need computers to do that are not particularly original. Writing drivers for a new network card, figuring out how to manage your IP addresses and fail over if things break, extending some function to allow for new capabilities, adding new syscalls to the operating system, etc. These are all things that need to get done, but there is nothing particularly original about them.
I've been a professional software developer for over a decade, often doing quite interesting and challenging work. But I wouldn't consider any of it patentable because it is all essentially straightforward to one "skilled in the art".
One last point..."obvious" does not mean "trivial". It can take a long time to bring up an OS on new hardware, but it's all straightforward stuff.
I think the patent office has gotten lazy about the whole "not obvious to one skilled in the art" thing.
If the improved algorithm makes use of some fundamental genius stroke of brilliance that is totally oddball and amazing and makes everyone go, "wow, that's awesome, I would never have thought of that!" then it deserves a patent.
If the improved algorithm is just incremental improvements that any signals engineer could do then it should not be patentable.
As I mentioned earlier, I've been working for a decade doing often-interesting and challenging work, and almost none of it should be (in my opinion) patentable because it's all too obvious.
I have to say that I really, really dislike Stallman. And that said, his suggestion is actually a very sensible approach: You make a law that makes clear what is and what isn't allowed, and that simplifies things a lot.
There will be a bit of discussion about what "generally used computing hardware" is, but I would assume that any PC, Mac, Linux or Solaris box, IBM mainframe, iPad, playstation, would fall under that category. The software controlling your car engine, probably not.
An Android phone or iPhone as far as it is used to make phone calls, or software in your camera: Well, that's a tough one.
'-1 Troll'? Where is your sense of humor, Slashdot??
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Most real-world programming work involves solving the same problem over and over again. How many times do programmers get tasks like, "connect this web front-end to a database back-end?"
That does not mean that there are no non-obvious software solutions. Is a sub-cubic time matrix multiplication method obvious to you? Is the FFT obvious? Someone had to discover these algorithms before the rest of us could use them. Here, if you want, is a problem with a non-obvious answer (i.e. it is unsolved): given a set of integers, can an algorithm running in less than quadratic time find three integers from the set whose sum is 0?
Palm trees and 8
Very nice to see he is not using the absurd "Software is Math" argument that pops up on groklaw regularly.
S
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
What the hell is a frogturtle? And more importantly... and can I patent it?
My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
Drug dealers aren't heroes, or champions of empowering individuals with the right to choose.
I agree that the situation is largely because of the prohibition, and I do support decriminalization, but that doesn't change the fact that most drug dealers are pretty shady individuals.
Blame the people for endorsing the monopoly on force that is the state, which foists this tavesty of intellectual property upon us.
A Cherokee Legend
The junior engineer was walking down a path and he came across a patent lawyer. The patent lawyer was getting old. He asked, "Please junior engineer, can you take me to the top of the mountain? I hope to see the sunset one last time before I retire." The junior engineer answered "No Mr. patent lawyer. If I pick you up, you'll sue me and I'll go bankrupt." The patent lawyer said, "No, I promise. I won't sue you. Just please take me up to the mountain." The junior engineer thought about it and finally lifted up that patent lawyer, put his arm around his waist and carried him up to the top of the mountain.
They sat there and watched the sunset together. It was so beautiful. Then after sunset the patent lawyer turned to the junior engineer and asked, "Can I go home now? I am tired, and I am old." The junior engineer picked up the patent lawyer and again put his arm around the lawyers waist and carried him safely. He came all the way down the mountain holding the lawyer carefully and took him to his home to give him some food and a place to sleep. The next day the patent lawyer turned to the boy and asked, "Please junior engineer, will you take me back to my home now? It is time for me to leave this industry, and I would like to be at my home now." The junior engineer felt he had been safe all this time and the patent lawyer had kept his word, so he would take it home as asked.
He carefully picked up the patent lawyer and carried him back to the woods, to his home to retire. Just before he laid the patent lawyer down, the patent lawyer turned and filed a lawsuit. The junior engineer cried out and lowered the lawyer upon the ground. "Mr. Lawyer, why did you do that? Now I will surely go bankrupt!" The patent lawyer looked up at him and grinned, "You knew what I was when you carried me."
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
It's worse than that. Not only is math equivalent to software, but people have written the programs for ZFC (if you don't know what that is, just replace ZFC with "all the math you know and then some"). You can play with that program over on Metamath if you're so inclined.
Empowering an individual to execute their RIGHT to choose what they want to put in their body is not evil and certainly doesn't belong on the same line with car thieves and human trafficking.
I would agree with you as long as said drug usage does not land them in public hospital stealing my precious public resources. As long as drug losers pay for their own funerals and private doctors, they can do as they wish.
Software developers and software users – which in our society, is most people – need software to be free of patents.
No one NEEDS software to be free of patents. That is like saying users need smart phones and cars and houses to be free of patents. And yet all of those things have had patents, and outside of the recent spat in the smart phone arena, patents seem to mostly work. Sure, sometimes designers have to design around, or license patents to built their device. But they manage. Maybe it takes them longer to come to market, and the original designer enjoys an edge (and thus can design more)
So why is software special? Why do developers and users NEED software to be free of patents? Mainly only because software patents are given too freely.
The fix isn't to make patents basically worthless (just nullify them then) But to fix the approval process. "You applied? Here you go" At least that seems like what the approval process is today.
It'd be nice if that were the case, but it isn't. Patent lawyers actively lobby for legislation which will produce more lucrative employment for patent lawyers.
Lawyers aren't general-purpose. 'Patent lawyer' is an occupation in and of itself; increasingly, so is 'software patent lawyer'. Any time there is a debate about patent-related legislation where one side can generally be characterized as 'pro-patent' and the other can be generally characterized as 'anti-patent', you will find a large horde of patent lawyers on the 'pro-patent' side. There isn't just a neutral cadre of general-purpose lawyers who don't care whether there are lots of patent lawsuits or not. That's not how the system works. Particularly the American system.
For your analogy to be accurate, it should be the engineer/lawyer scumbags that should refuse to write the patent to begin with.
Or, the lawyers should turn down these cases, like a soldier should refuse to fire his M1 tank at a crowd of civilians.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Car-thieves and human traffickers are harming a non-consenting party. It's up to the reader to decide if there is any analogy with the lawyers' case.
Drug-dealers generally aren't harming people. And would harm even less people if being a drug dealer didn't line you up for years of jailtime.
rms seems to have extremely simplistic and somewhat immature views on everything relating to copyright and software licensing. software is a means to an end, not something to argue about. whether or not a package is licensed under a free/libre license or not does not have any implications for its usefulness, e.g. i am not going to use a poorly-written program 'just because it's free' when there is a better proprietary alternative available.
that being said, the inverse is also true. i very much prefer libreoffice/openoffice to microsoft word, and all but one of the computer systems in my home are running linux-based systems (mostly crunchbang). i just don't want to be shouted at for preferring some proprietary solutions to free/open-source alternatives if the free/open-source options are poorly conceived.
I'm failing to understand what do you mean by this. If a first song's hook (the substantial recognizable portion) is contained in a second song, the second song infringes the first song's copyright.
Armed robbers gotta rob and murderers gotta kill... Shall we hold them blameless?
Just because it will never happen doesn't mean it wouldn't be good for society.
I want my Cowboyneal
Stop blaming the lawyers and start blaming the people who ask them to file the lawsuits. It is like blaming the engineers that build an M1 tank, rather than the military that buys and operates it.
Speaking as a veteran who was in armor, what's wrong with a main battle tank? After all, they're only effective against other heavily armed and armored vehicles, so they would seem to be the most clear cut example of appropriate use of force.
Similarly, I don't see the issue with the lawyers. They're invariably going after other companies in what a fight the may not be pretty, but is largely ethical. The problem with the situation is the people who simply don't develop things because they know they will get sued.