On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:55:34 -0400, Chante <udontspa...@never.will.u>
wrote:
"Steven Schveighoffer" <schvei...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:op.v3ylgbgaeav7ka@localhost.localdomain...
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.
With a book, the text is the end product. With software, the source code
is an intermediate representation, or production machine rather than the
end product. Source code is like a printing press for a specific book. It
is not like the book. (These analogies are presented more for analysis,
rather than in direct or opposing response).
compiled software is copyrighted, it's a derivative translation of the
original source code. When speaking of copyrighted software, the binary
code and the source used to build it are one and the same.
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.
I disagree. While one can use software to perform math, that does not
make software "like math".
Then the rest of this argument is moot, and I respectfully will end debate
so as to not waste any more of our time.
-Steve
