On Tue, 31 May 2005 08:30, Daniel Carrera wrote: > M. Fioretti wrote: > >>I can accept a copyright-style protection for your actual work. > > > > Stallman teaches us that copyright and patents are deeply different > > beasts, so we shouldn't mix them, but, in the interest of a > > stimulating and friendly discussion, I'll byte. > > Yes, indeed. I should have written the above more carefully. > > I believe your position is best shown in this example: > > But if I had finished yesterday, after years of labor, the formula for > > the film you used, maybe spending a lot of money, you copied the > > formula today and, without even really understanding it, began to sell > > tomorrow films at a cheaper price because you have no R&D costs to > > recover, I'd be mightily pissed. That's why patents were invented. > > Now, I'm going to say something very radical: I disagree. > > "What? Is Daniel crazy? Did he just say not to reward hard work?" > > I'm not crazy yet :-) and I do see where you're comming from. But I > think I have an interesting, and outside-the-box thought here: > > What you just described could be called a "big bang" development model. > That is, an inventor works in secrecy for a long time, and one day > announces to the world this one massive invention. I believe that this
One NZ inventor - Richard Pierce - who believed in this "working-in-secret" has the distinction of never having his inventions in the fields of aviation or anything else, actually get taken up anywhere. So as an inventor he's incredible, as a practical success - he wasted his life. > development model should be discouraged in favour of the "small step" > model. Similar to the FOSS mantra "release early, and release often". > The scientific community has been following it for a long time. And > historically, most breakthroughs come from this model. > > A useful historical analogy is alchemy vs chemistry. Alchemy was > developed in the big-bang model. People worked in isolation for long > periods of time. During alchemy, very few advances were made. It wasn't > until people started sharing ideas early and often that real progress > was made. Once this happened, progress was very rapid, and gave rise to > what we now call chemistry. > > Patents discourage small-step development in favour of the less > productive big-bang development. > > Cheers, > Daniel. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish ----- Mau e ki, he aha te mea nui? You ask, what is the most important thing? Maku e ki, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata. I reply, it is people, it is people, it is people. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
