On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:04:18 -0400, Chante <udontspa...@never.will.u>
wrote:
"Steven Schveighoffer" <schvei...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:op.v3u2chz6eav7ka@localhost.localdomain...
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:39:54 -0400, Kagamin <s...@here.lot> wrote:
Chante Wrote:
While I haven't thought it through (and maybe don't have the
knowledge to
do so), elimination of software patents was something I had in mind
as a
potential cure for the current state of affairs (not a cure for viral
source code though). Of course, noting that first-to-file is now the
thing, it appears (to me) that Big Software Corp and Big Government
are
on one side, humanity on the other.
Patents are seen to exist for humanity. Elimination of patents is
equivalent to elimination of intellectual property. You're not going
to succeed on that. But GPL3 at least protects you from patent claims
from the author, so you'd better use it. You're afraid of others, but
GPL can also protect *your* code.
Patents are to foster innovation. Software innovation needs no patent
system to foster it. Nobody writes a piece of software because they
were able to get a patent for it.
I feel software patents are a completely different entity than material
patents. For several reasons:
1. Software is already well-covered by copyright.
Software, though, is not like a book: it's not just text. There is
inherent design, architecture, engineering represented by source code.
Books require design, sometimes elaborate design, and engineering of
sorts. What an author puts into writing a book is not unlike what an
entity puts into writing software.
2. With few exceptions, the lifetime of utility of a piece of software
is well below the lifetime of a patent (currently 17 years).
3. It is a very slippery slope to go down. Software is a purely
*abstract* thing, it's not a machine.
Maybe literally "abstract", but those flow charts, layers,
boxes-and-arrows actually become realized (rendered, if you will) by the
source code. The text really isn't important. The "abstraction" is.
Software is not unlike math. It achieves something based on an abstract
concept of the world. It has practical uses. But math is not patentable.
It can be produced en mass with near-zero cost. It can be expressed
via source code, which is *not* a piece of software. There is a very
good reason things like music, art, and written works are not
patentable.
Music and art don't "do" anything except titilate the senses. Software,
OTOH, does do things of practical utility.
Music and art are both different from software and the same. They are
different because there are no rules for creating valid music or art. I
could bang on the wall randomly with a pipe, and try to sell that as music
(and ironically, I might succeed). But they are the same because writing
music and creating art that *is good* is a difficult thing that requires
careful thought, planning, and execution.
-Steve
