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MySQL author gives view on Patents
Michael Widenius, the main code-contributor to MySQL says that
that software patents are bad for the community, should not
be awarded for software ideas, user interfaces, standards or
interoperability. Moreover if a patent were to be awarded, it
should only be for major work (something that can't be done
by a single individual within 50 years) and last 2-3 years at
most.
patents suck in the software world.. look at all those crazy patents cropping up from everyone and their grandmother... oops now I owe someone for using website format layout
just for those who don't know, mysql is provided
gratis for personal use. it is not dfsg/osd compliant.
Software should be shared. Makes it better.
Duh.
This is the sort of mushy crud that ends up being less than worthless.
Lets talk freedom here folks. Like freedom to choose a philosophy. Some of us want to make some money in our lives - and the current practices of the OSS community aren't conducive to that (and don't try to BS me - no one is going to become a billionaire providing service and support to RedHat users).
Patents have been abused. But they have also protect innovators for over a century. Thats a little better than the track record of the OSS community, and its largely unproven hokey-commune approach.
But of course, like all communists, OSS advocates are facsists deep down.
Every patent holder wants to make money and protects the patents. No matter what... We have no choice other than being money puppets in this social system.
make some money in our lives - and the current practices of the OSS community
aren't conducive to that
What the heck are you talking about? Noone's stopping you from releasing your software under a
proprietary license, or from making money off your program other ways.
no one is going to become a billionaire providing service and support to RedHat users
You say that like it's a bad thing.
its largely unproven hokey-commune approach
It's not unproven, dipshit. Before all this licensing crap came into being, all software was Free. The programmers made good programs. Other programmers made them better. That's not BS, sport, it's fact. Choke on it.
And another thing: communism and facsism are diametrically opposed ideologies. Real communism is about a classless society where everyone contributes what they can and uses only what they need. The "Communism" practiced by the former Soviet Union and China actually is pretty close to fascism, so I can see how you might have gotten confused on that issue, but the free software movement is based more on the classless society whose members contribute what they can, while downloading and freely using what they need.
This is just about the dumbest thing I've heard all day. Why do you suppose computers have become so popular? Because people can make a *lot* of money with them. If you have to spend millions of research dollars over several years **just** to be able to patent something for 2-3 years, chances are that you're not going to bother doing it, because you're going to lose money (unless, of course, it's something of enormous utility, like virtually-100%-realistic-artificial-intelligence. and we all know how often that happens). Open source is nice, but it isn't the "Godsend be-all, see-all, know-all" that some people like to think it is. Most people want to make money, and they're able to make more of it by keeping the source to themselves. If this became a reality, I think you'd see mainstream software development take a big hit. I, personally, would like to retain the range of choice available with the current software patent model. God bless America. Harumph. Harumph.
You states that comps are popular because people make top $$ with comps. That's an erroneous point of view. This is the opposite : people gets *lots* of money because people but comps.
;-)
Seconds, in comp industry things are really used for 2-3 years (rarelly more). Therefore your argument about patenting in order to keep the stuff from competitors for years is not a valid one. More : in comp industry companies make money at the beginning of the products' life, not years later. Why is Intel selling so expensive chips when they go out on the market ?
Note : I am not against patents, they are valuable in traditional engineering, but its too much in comp industry, they patent anything, and that's bad : that's the first who tell the thing that owns it, even though that's been used for years by plenty of people... Arggh M$ sucks !!! (hate and rage
not me...i just mentioned it wasn't free.
Just wanted to add that in Germany, patenting
:-)
software is not possible, and patenting algorithms
has been found to be against the constitutional
right of free research and teaching.
Software is protected by copyright here, not by patents. (That is, if I code a program using RSA, I can sell that software coded by me - which I couldn't if RSA were patented.)
I think the ruling that software can not be patented is a good thing. Copyright protection is better suited for software. It even holds longer: 50 years after the death of the creator of a work.
One could argue that even copyright inhibits innovation, but I think there is no arguing that patents are much worse.
Crazy US legal system
A patent grants a government enforced monopoly.
This is statist (i.e. fascist or communist)
Sovereign individuals voluntarily cooperating does
not even require a government. This is true liberty this is the free in free software.
This view of patents is a declaration of war against anybody who has worked hard to invent an idea. Under this definition, Thomas Edison would not have been allowed to patent the light bulb, Nikoli Tesla would not have been allowed to patent the transformer, and Alexander Graham Bell would not have been allowed to patent the telephone. Any individual who worked on his own, without a research staff (perhaps because he could not afford one), could not patent anything even if he spent fifty-five years working on it. And if he could afford a research staff, he'd have to work fifty years, which is almost his whole life. For what? For three years of private ownership (which is hardly even enough time to convince people that the invention is worth buying)? That's an injustice if I ever saw one. In fact, for all practical purposes, it represents the abolition of patents.
Patents are all that protect inventors from becoming slaves (to the degree that they are inventors). Anybody who wants to abolish patents wants to enslave the people who are capable of inventing -- and simultaneously confesses his own lack of qualifications, by admitting he can't invent anything of his own. What will really happen is, people will stop being inventors, and the abolitionists will wonder why all the inventions have dried up. The only case where patents seem to trample on people's rights is illusory -- independent invention is rare, and, when it does occur, people who have ideas and sit on them might as well not bother to have them, and deserve to be surpassed by somebody who'll put them to use (the first step of which is publication, which will make a "prior art" lawsuit possible, or patenting first). If the inventions are nearly simultaneous, the first one to the patent office wins -- why shouldn't the patent go to the person most able to describe and implement it?
Most people do not understand how patents work. This makes them unqualified to call for their abolition.
First of all, the titles are always vague, like "a method of transferring music over computer networks." A patent with this title would NOT cover ALL such methods -- only the one which it describes. Otherwise, surely everything would have been patented by now, and even a big company like Microsoft could not but work in terror of infringing something. The actual patent is always more specific.
For example, the famous Microsoft patent that Slashdot allegedly infringes seems to only cover magazines that use certain particular methods of drag & drop (which Slashdot does not use). You have to read the patent to find this out. The title is too vague.
The second thing to remember about patents is that they are not retroactive. You can still send WAV files over FTP. Everything you have now is either unpatented, or you have already paid to license it (unless you manufactured it yourself, in which case you should have tried to patent it or license it). By law, patents cannot threaten the pre-existing; new patents don't hurt you. Of course, if you have a new idea, you should patent it yourself, before anybody else does. License it to the FSF for free if you like, but patent it. If you don't, someone else might.
The third thing to remember is that ideas last forever, while patents don't. The benefit an inventor gives to "society" over the long term is incalculable, regardless of how many trillions of dollars he makes. But the needs of "society" are not the justification for the inventor's existence, or his profit. He has a right to his own life and to his own property -- and therefore he has a right to own the ideas he creates, at least for a time, and to set the terms for their use. Society has no "rights" except for the rights of its members; it is only a mass of individuals, and each one has the same rights as any inventor. "Need" is not a license to steal, rob, pillage, or plunder, no matter how many people "need" or how severe their "need" is -- this despite the exhortations of Hitler, Stalin, and modern government leaders.
Stealing material objects is bad enough, but stealing ideas is worse, because it is the ideas that make the material objects possible (if they are man-made.) These attacks against private property, including their underlying assumptions, are false and malicious. I just wanted to say so.
-- An Ayn-onymous Coward
It's basically free on Unix, but $200 on Windoze.
This view of patents is a declaration of war against anybody who has worked hard to invent an idea. Under this definition, Thomas Edison would not have been allowed to patent the light bulb, Nikoli Tesla would not have been allowed to patent the transformer, and Alexander Graham Bell would not have been allowed to patent the telephone.
Incorrect. The comments, especially the suggested 2-3 year lifetime, apply specifically to software patents.
Patents are all that protect inventors from becoming slaves (to the degree that they are inventors).
Incorrect. Almost all patents are granted to inventors working for corporations, working under contracts that ensure patent ownership reverts to the corporation. In fact, the patent system as currently construed and operated is very dangerous to the independent inventor, especially in the area of software (where almost every worker is an inventor). This is because almost any "invention" (i.e. new piece of software) is likely to infringe on other patented "inventions", due to the great number and scope of patents on simple software techniques. The independent inventor lacks the means to license or cross-license these other patents, and is therefore at the mercy of the corporations with large patent portfolios.
Most people do not understand how patents work. This makes them unqualified to call for their abolition.
Perhaps. My brother is a patent attourney, and I do research in computer science. Take that for what you will.
First of all, the titles are always vague, like "a method of transferring music over computer networks." A patent with this title would NOT cover ALL such methods -- only the one which it describes. Otherwise, surely everything would have been patented by now, and even a big company like Microsoft could not but work in terror of infringing something. The actual patent is always more specific.
That may sometimes be the case, but there are certainly many examples of companies seeking license fees for patents with very broad claims --- for example, Eolas (active Web content), Sightsound (selling and delivering digital music online), and Wang (making a local copy of materials viewed online). Perhaps these claims are not justified, but the very threat of legal action has a chilling effect, especially on independent inventors with few legal resources.
The second thing to remember about patents is that they are not retroactive. You can still send WAV files over FTP. Everything you have now is either unpatented, or you have already paid to license it (unless you manufactured it yourself, in which case you should have tried to patent it or license it).
That would be ideal, but it's far from practical. For example, at CMU we have had a Coke machine attached to the Internet for more than ten years. (CMU was one of the original ARPAnet sites.) I'm sure at the time no-one would have thought it was patentable. Even if they had, the students who did it could not have afforded to acquire a patent. (At the time, it may not even have been patentable ... USPTO standards have been loosening for quite some time now.) A few months ago we were contacted by someone who had acquired a patent on Internet-attached vending machines, and who demanded licensing fees or else the shutdown of our system. Of course we could not afford the fees, did not feel morally obliged to pay them, and did not wish to be deprived of the fruits of our labour. Fortunately he did not press legal action, but if he had, we would have had to concede, since those responsible for the Coke machine have no resources to defend our case.
The third thing to remember is that ideas last forever, while patents don't. The benefit an inventor gives to "society" over the long term is incalculable, regardless of how many trillions of dollars he makes. But the needs of "society" are not the justification for the inventor's existence, or his profit. He has a right to his own life and to his own property -- and therefore he has a right to own the ideas he creates, at least for a time, and to set the terms for their use.
These rights are all enforceable through trade secrecy and non-disclosure agreements. These mechanisms do not preclude independent invention, which I think is a good and fair thing. Consider the inventor who creates an invention, and just as she is about to reap the rewards of her work, discovers that a patent has just been granted that covers the same thing. What happened to her rights?
Anyway, even I would not say that all patents are bad, just that many are and the system needs to be reformed.
Don't bother declaring that independent invention is anomalous. From personal experience and from my observations of the industry, in most cases of patent infringement the infringer was completely unaware of the existence of the patent and patented work, meaning that the infringing work was independently invented.
Robert O'Callahan
So is Alladin Ghostscript.
Where one contributor makes the majority of
contributions, these licenses really aren't much
of a problem.
-------------------
A license is required if:
You sell the MySQL server directly or as a part of another product or service
You charge for installing and maintaining a MySQL server at some client site
You include MySQL in a distribution that is non redistributable and you charge for some part of that distribution
-------------------
Yes, it is NOT GPL. But I for one, dislike, and
am opposed to the ultra-left movements of the FSF
at late. Freedom to be equal is important, but
so is freedom to be different.
So is Alladin Ghostscript.
Where one contributor makes the majority of
contributions, these licenses really aren't much
of a problem.
-------------------
A license is required if:
* You sell the MySQL server directly or as a part of another product or service
* You charge for installing and maintaining a * MySQL server at some client site You include MySQL in a distribution that is non redistributable and you charge for some part of that distribution
-------------------
The only thing that I think needs to be changed,
to make it more like Aladdin's license, would be
that distributing the software in a distribution
which as a whole is freely redistributable, should
incur no royalty requirements, regardless of how
much charged. (i.e. including it in a Linux
distribution which has no proprietary parts)
Yes, it is NOT GPL. But I for one, dislike, and
am opposed to the ultra-left movements of the FSF
as late. Freedom to be equal is important, but
so is freedom to be different.
The above brainwashed comment is based on the idea that you can OWN ideas.
Patent-law tries to uphold this strange idea. The truth however, is that you
can HAVE an idea and that, at your option, can SHARE this idea with others.
Patent-law is a strange artefact that tries to transform sharing into owning
for reasons of monetary gain.
To make this law work it has to criminalize all other use of ideas.
Just as RIAA tries to criminalize people who listen to music in ways that doesn't
bring monetary gain to them.
OK then, let's let individual inventors hold lifetime patents and make patents held by artificial entities such as corporations last only a couple of years...people need to be protected, but the company I work for claims to own all my IP while I'm employed here (from the employeee handbook even my bands cd's belong to my employer) and I'm just in tech support. So essentially copyright law rips me off while protecting my employer. I would like to be able to at least be one fo the people able to profit from my invention, idea, copyrighted work after a few years...at least while I'm still alive...
/. acct. just never can remember my damn p/w...)
even if I quit this job and later patent anything if they can find even a scribble of an idea relating to it was come up with while I was emplyed for them, they will fight it out wiht my next employer, still leaving me out in the cold...
how many of you have signed away your IP just to be a wage-slave?
12xu
(i have a
I mean really, if you're going to come out in favor of something without reservation, at least make an effort to know what it is that you're coming out in favor of. Please do some research and discover that patents have nothing to do with keeping the source to ones self. They're about reserving exclusive rights to some process or another. Patents are public documents, all facets of something you have patented, including sample source code, are revealed to the world. Patents are about ownership of fundamental ideas.
People can claim that higher standards for handing out patents are "dumb". Sure, people are free to claim that. Of course, if they look at the actual evidence, it becomes clear that the majority of patents filed these days should never have been granted. I've worked for a genetics company, and my father works for one too. Basically what they're involved in these days to a large degree is combing through human biology, patenting every protein and gene they can find. You should see some of these patent applications. They basically take some completely natural product and reserve all practical uses of it without even being really sure what it can be used for. Now, most of these patents are technically invalid, and can be fought in courts, in fact that's the policy of the Patent and Trademark office: grant the patent to the paying customer, any disputes will be settled by litigation. What I want to know is, why doesn't someone ever sue the patent and trademark office? This policy excludes anyone without the money to fight in court (read: regular people, you know the ones who are getting their biological processes patented) and just generally creates a situation where it's impossible to get anything done without massive amounts of lawyers fees, court fees, and time. It's completely counter-productive and inefficient. Sometimes these companies completely destroy each other fighting over something no-one should own. It's like some bizarre civil war where every one keeps on burning each others farms until both sides starve.
Restrictions on patents aren't the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, the current patent system is. Say, anyone out there interested in a class action suit againts the Patent and Trademark office? Virtually all of us have been hurt by it's policies. Do you pay huge amounts for drugs to treat some illness? Sure, research costs are high, but they spend nearly as much on litigation because of this nonsense. At the heart of the problem is who? You guessed it, the Patent and Trademark office. Have you been bullied by some big corporation for "violating" their invalid patent and had to fold just because they had enough lawyers? Or worse, lost your house paying for your own lawyers? Who granted them that patent in the first place without really looking at it? You guessed it...
Next, are you going to suggest that Avagadro's number should have been patented? How about the speed of light? It sounds a lot to me like your example is about some natural number, essentially a measurement. You can't patent something like that in any rational world. It's just plain wrong.
The other problem with your example is the concept of breaking into someone's office to steal a piece of paper with a magic number on it. Sure it's a crime, but the criminal part is the breaking and entering. What if someone just happened to walk by and glance at the number and remember it? Isn't that a less contrived example? Also, the announcement over the radio of this secret number means nothing as far as patenting goes. The information would be freely available to everyone after you patented anyway, they just wouldn't be able to use it. Usually, the announcement over the radio wouldn't preclude your patenting it anyway (except for the fact, as already mentioned, that measurements are not supposed to be patentable).
As your claim that there are an infinite number of ideas out there, it's false. More or less. Do you know what a countable infinity is? It means that the range is infinite, but there are discrete units. In other words, ideas don't occupy an infintesimally(sp?) small area in idea space. One patented idea _can_ be a blockade that stops you from doing something in any way at all. Consider the patent on implementing xor in hardware. It pretty much means that you pay the royalty or use several instructions to perform an exclusive or. That's just plain sick.
I also find it interesting that you refer to billions of dollars being "DESTROYED". Real life does not work that way. Money isn't destroyed just because it doesn't go into your coffers. You also don't seem to have any idea how much money billions of dollars actually is. I don't think anyone has ever made billions as an independant researcher on one discovery.
As for your second to last paragraph, where you talk about how the world will grind to a halt and no-one will do ANYTHING if they can't get filthy stinkin' rich... That's a seriously warped view of human beings. The people who think that way are the ones the world is better off without anyway. In case you haven't noticed, this forum is very popular with people whose philosophy tends to lean towards the notion that people should create for the betterment of all rather than personal monetary gain. I mean that, from my point of view, is what free software is all about. It's about making a contribution to humanity. Now before you start accusing me of communing with flowers and woodland creatures, consider how such concepts as code-reuse are completely and utterly useless without a free software model.
Now, before I disagree with you one more time, I have to agree with you on something. There _should_ be an organization dedicated to fighting unreasonable patents with prior art claims. Of course, technically speaking, this organization should be a part of the Trademark and Patent Office, but they don't do their job properly. You can give the excuse that they're swamped in patent applications, but I see that as mainly their own fault. So many corporations (and the occaisional individual) wouldn't try to get away with so many invalid patent applications if they were slapped down hard every once in while. Instead, it seems that they Trademark and Patent Office just takes their money and rubber stamps most things, which just encourages corporations to swamp them with more and more patent applications. I think the very first thing an independant organization dedicated to litigation of unreasonable patents should do is sue the Trademark and Patent Office for its negligent behavior. Literally billions in lawsuits could have been avoided if they simply exercised some reasonable prudence. Fighting unreasonable patents will become much easier if the source of those patents is chastened.
Ok, now back to me disagreeing. "RMS is Bill Gates without the money"? Ok, who sold you the drugs? Seriously, are you high? For one thing, there's no such thing as Bill Gates without the money. A spoiled rich boy is literally who he is. He's never had less than a million dollars to his name in his _entire_ life. He was a mediocre programmer at best before he was kicked out of Harvard, and he hasn't done any coding since the early eighties. His views on software are not only opposed to those of RMS, but his "open letter to hobbyists" was one of RMS' inspirations to found the FSF. The two men could hardly be much different than they are.
Also, your understanding about how the GPL works is way off. The GPL does not turn over your work to the FSF. You retain copyright on your work, _unless_ you decide to donate it to the FSF. What you do is release your code under a license that allows others to use it, with certain restrictions designed to stop others from taking your public work and turning it private, or scamming people by releasing work that seems to be free to all to use, but then later demanding royalties (gif images anyone?) The GPL is a reaction against intellectual property laws. Now, the common argument people who haven't thought things through very well make is that the GPL couldn't work without IP laws. The monumental, paradoxial hole in this argument is that, without IP laws, there would be no need for the GPL. So let's not go there. Now, if you want to keep total control over your code, use your own license, but has it occurred to you, for even a moment at least, that if you're not willing to abide by _other_ people's licensing terms, then you shouldn't use their (**$@#%#$^ code. Write your own. If they wanted you to be able to do absolutly anything to their code, they'd release it into the public domain. As long as they have copyright, they can rerelease it under any license they want, they just can't un-GPL it. This reminds me of the whining some people do about how the FSF forced the creators of the objective C compiler (using gcc code) to release their work under GPL. The reason whining about that is stupid, it's because the GPL essentially gives the code away to everyone. So, by the sacred IP laws, when some programmers come along and try to make that code their own personal property, they're stealing. Which part of this don't people understand?
Oh, and yes, by the way, I do think free software is really free.
Well, the open source movement should go out and patent every single algorithm it can. See what that does to those who try to patent 1+1=2.
Damn...somebody who discussed the issues of s/w patents with clarity.
We are all capitalists. There are few things that provide the creaters of original work, who may be individuals ( vs corporations ), some level of bargaining power in the marketplace.
Patents are one such thing. Get it?
That said there are too many frivolous or incremental patents especially in software!
Perhaps the PTO could change the rules a bit on the main criteria for achieving a patent , it must be "unobvious". That alone would kill a bunch of s/w patents.
What are you planing to buy that costs a billion dollars?
Patents are ment to protect peoples inventions, not the ideas behind them. The software patents of today are like Thomas Edison inventing a light bulb and then patenting light.
No, in the real world Edison invented the carbon filament, electric vacume bulb. Tesla was free to them invent and patent the florescent bulb.
RSA invented a specific mathmatical formula to encrypt data one way, they then patented the idea of data encryption using public keys. That means that I am not free to figure out and sell a new public key algorithm because RSA has a patent that covers all data encryption using the idea of a public/private key.
This is just wrong. This restricts the modern inventor because as an individual I cannot defend myself against the resources of these corporations who are patenting all the ideas in view.
Say I come up with a new music compression technique and try to start my own company to sell this new format over the internet. Then lets say the company that owns the patent on distributing music over the internet (yes, this is a real patent) takes an interest in my company. They will be able to drive the stock price down with the threat of a lawsuit and then just buy out my company and throw me out of my own company.
This happens all the time.
Great, since no one else has the patent on human speach then I want that patent. Ohh. Ohh I know, lets patent an obsure mathematical formula and then sue anyone who uses the same numbers that our formula produces. Lets patent counting, start with one and cumulatively adding one. Lets patent parabolic formulas so that the enemy can't use these to shoot missiles at us. Lets patent DNA and then charge a fee to use my patented DNA formula.
I just wrote a sad song, so now I am going to patent the idea of a sad song and make anyone else who writes sad songs pay a license fee.
A computer program is a mathematical proof that is used to organize a series of switches inside a box. That is all. I can see making it a crime to just copy someone elses work without paying them for it but I cannot see forbiding others, starting from scratch, from figuring out their own switch settings to perform a function identical to mine.
You are free to use the ideas in the patent office to develop your own inventions. You can take an item that was patented yesterday, add an improvement and patent it again tomorrow. But not with software, because these patents are on the idea behind the software, not the specific instance of something.
For instance, a user interface has been common on computers for the last hundred years, it was the punch card. For those of whom think that computers are a new invention read about the punchcard french looms of the 1890's. Now, it got tiring to sort these cards everytime you dropped them so people put octal rotary switches on the front of computers and entered their programs that way. These rotary switches had markings on them. They had the numbers 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Numbers are graphics too, the are idealized little pictures that once had other meanings. Thus the first GUI was produced long, long ago. WWII or thereabouts. So anybody claiming that taking these pictures and showing them in a tv and changing them with a mouse is new is full of it. No different than using your hand to change the same settings on a control board. It is just handier to change around the control board on a monitor than to tear apart a console. But does it deserve a patent? I think not.
--
--
=8^
Yeah, it would be nice if mysql were really free. But it's not, and that's the author's choice. I would think that that would not invalidate his opinions on software patents, however. In fact, I think it's telling if even some proprietary developers think such patents suck ass.
--Matthew
that's very naive. communism and fascism are simply variations of collectivism: the idea that the wishes of the individual are worthless and exist only to serve the state/the church/whatever.
Actually, I think you could, just need more users.
support gun control: take guns from cops
200 years ago, even 100 years ago, 17 year patents made sense. Everything was a mechanical invention, society was slower moving.
Some thing still apply. Pharmaceuticals, for instance, take so much money and time to develop and get regulatory approval.
But business practices? XOR cursors? auctions? These are obvious to anyone even not so skilled in the art. Other patents, like the suid/guid bit, strike me as a true clever invention (altho I don't know the state of the art at that moment) but surely a couple of years would be sufficient.
--
Infuriate left and right
"All communists... are facsists [sic] deep down".
This A/C went on to prove that true is false, night is day, white is black, before being run over on a zebra crossing. [Apologies to Douglas Adams]
I don't like what I'm seeing here.
First of all I'm all for OSS and its proven its case, time and time again in regards to functionality and stability. Its certainly managed to keep large corporation in check with the new pressure of producing good code for a better price.
My problem is this "We don't need a new billionaire" or "you don't ~need~ to be a billionaire approach". This in its self ~is~ communism. First of all, we better thank those non government oriented corporations and individuals for
~being~ billionaires, which just so happens to layout the fundamental basis of economy which allows smaller companies to grow, for people to have decent jobs that they can feed their family with conformably.
Not everyone want's to be a government employee making the same salary or a salary geared towards popular acceptance.
You want to be a billionaire, then be one. I know its will circulate into my pocket and everyone's pocket... its the law
of economy presuming we don't chase their investment into other countries due to tax punishment for having that money.
The patent laws have gone off the wall, this is true. But to say one cannot be awarded a patent based on the fact that they are an individual or haven't spent 50 years in development is complete non-sense and "is" communism. At least in America, this is a land of the "individual", not organizations, corporations and government. Let it be up to the individual what to do with his/her invention or patent. But I would agree that no one needs a patent on an ashtray umbrella.
In my opinion, Linus should have full rights to patent linux. Whether he wants to charge for it or give it away under a gnu license, that "his" business, not some community or a group of gimme free mongers.
You demand free stuff, then sit "your" ass down, code it "yourself" for free, and give it away. Don't tell "me" I can't patent/sell and commercialize my software.
Note:
My comments are to only those who apply.
what would happen if this continues. Eventually, every possible algorithm and informational concept will be patented.
When governments and corporations cannot possibly know even a fraction of the patents they are violating simply by doing business and without intention, I wonder how long it will take to get this mess cleaned up.
You know, wait for a critical mass of this stupidity, then declare all software patents void or good only for 6 months or somesuch.
Or am I dreaming again?
--
The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
Unfortunate.
I guess the lawyers will have work for life. Several lives, actually.
"Yes, I'm a startup, and I need $1 billion in venture capital." "Why so much?" "Before I can hire desingers I have to hire patent lawyers."
--
The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
Is it beneficial for society when we encode intelligence and then regulate the use of that intelligence?
If I can patent an algorithm, why can't I patent one such as, 'Remove keys from pocket, use key to open car door, get in car, fasten seatbelt, etc...' ??? Is the validity of a patent only governed by how clueless the patent office is about the industry the patent applies to?
If you consider that computer code is simply encoded intelligence, at what point are we limiting the technological innovation of the human race in the name of Intellectual Capital?
Slashdot: Liberal News for Nerds. Liberal Stuff that Matters.
This is so exciting! I love to punctuate! Even when I write a long sentence that couldn't possibly be spoken with the emphasis that I think it should have, I still end it with an exclaimation point! Bang! Bang! Shebang#!
Er...
But, really, patents should only be awarded for things that are specific and truly innovative, not for "the transfer of music from one computer directly to another" or some other such nonsense. The idea is to protect the inventor, not screw the world.
-tak
In software, a patent is one of two things: 1) A marketing gimmick, which doesn't fool anyone but investors and the lower IQ part of the customer base. 2) A bargaining chip. If your company threatens my company by waving a patent at us, then my company can respond by waving a patent back at your company.
Your argument makes some sense in the physical world. But in software, there are lots of ways to solve a given problem, and it's just too easy to code around a patent. Especially the notoriously lightweight software patents that are routinely awarded. Also, by the time a patent is issued (probably 2-3 years after the application date), the patented technology is likely to be obsolete.
Do you really think Microsoft or IBM got rich from their patents? Or that Microsoft would not have written Word or Windows but for the protection of its patents? Or that patents are really preventing anyone from competing with those companies? I suggest you tune in to the Microsoft antitrust trial.
No, the only guys making money from patents are patent attorneys. Three years ago I left my job and wrote some software to start a new business. My major expense was paying a patent attorney several thousand dollars to get an "opinion letter" which does nothing but buy some insurance in the extremely unlikely case that a patent infringement case does get to the point of a court verdict. That was quite enough for me; I couldn't even begin to contemplate obtaining a patent on my own work.
Here's a suggestion that should appeal to the open source crowd: If you have a patentable idea, PUBLISH IT. Then no one gets to patent it.
Try out PostgreSQL. It is an object-relational database and I have personally used it with PHP, Python, Java and through the ODBC driver on Windows machines. I have set it up on Linux machines, FreeBSD 2.1 and FreeBSD 3.0 machines. And I have used it in commercial projects and will do so again.
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Michael Dillon - E-mail: michael@memra.com
Michael Dillon - E-mail: michael@memra.com
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