Ok I'll call you on your argument/bluff that the open source world is the place where innovations happen. Name some important innovations that even come close to some of the patented world innovations in software: RSA algorithm, Netscape SSL, Google PageRanking, SecurId.
While open source products like Apache, Firefox,... might have some non-trivial usage behind them the financial numbers they brought to their inventors pales in comparison to their patent example counterparts. In fact, how far would those OSS products have made it IF they did have a financial cost to obtaining them?
"Oh, BS. Ideas are a dime a dozen, and inventions are created to solve actual problems. If Edison hadn't put the lightbulb into production, someone needing higher capacity lighting would have."
but without patent protection the "someone else" would have been missing financial certainty and may not have put his $dollar forward to pay for the costs and so we might have waited some time. In fact, those others were in a race TO invent the light bulb since there was financial motiviation. In other words, your argument only works if the others were not working on a light-bulb for financial reasons with patent protection at the end. Also note the race part, the inventors saw the need and possibilities and so were spurred on by financial motivation to invent.
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Ok I'll call you on your argument/bluff that the open source world is the place where innovations happen. Name some important innovations that even come close to some of the patented world innovations in software: RSA algorithm, Netscape SSL, Google PageRanking, SecurId.
... might have some non-trivial usage behind them the financial numbers they brought to their inventors pales in comparison to their patent example counterparts. In fact, how far would those OSS products have made it IF they did have a financial cost to obtaining them?
While open source products like Apache, Firefox,
"Oh, BS. Ideas are a dime a dozen, and inventions are created to solve actual problems. If Edison hadn't put the lightbulb into production, someone needing higher capacity lighting would have."
but without patent protection the "someone else" would have been missing financial certainty and may not have put his $dollar forward to pay for the costs and so we might have waited some time. In fact, those others were in a race TO invent the light bulb since there was financial motiviation. In other words, your argument only works if the others were not working on a light-bulb for financial reasons with patent protection at the end. Also note the race part, the inventors saw the need and possibilities and so were spurred on by financial motivation to invent.