2011/3/8 Cédric Beust ♔ <[email protected]> > > > On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 12:58 AM, Kevin Wright <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Has everyone seen this yet: >> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html > > > Miroslav did a good job showing that the fashion industry is not exactly > innovative, but I'm more interested by your logical claim: > > >> It's not proof, by any stretch, but it's certainly a very convincing >> demonstration that creativity will happen in spite of patents, and not >> because of them. >> > > If you assertion were true, all it shows is that indeed, creativity will > happen without patents, but it certainly doesn't show that creativity can't > happen thanks to patents. > > A bit like saying that hot chocolate tastes good without sugar, therefore, > it can't taste good because of sugar. Guess what, it tastes better with > sugar! :) > > As someone who finds hot chocolate in all forms to be far too sickly sweet for my taste, I'm far more a fan of straight espresso's, and so have to disagree with you in this analogy.
I would however point out that many health experts are pointing to the love of artificially sweetened food and drinks in the USA as being a significant factor in obesity, and that this represents a severe long-term health problem for the nation as a whole. With a staggering associated financial cost that everyone must pay through their taxes and insurance premiums. Are you saying, then, that software patents are good in the same way that extra sugar in hot chocolate is good? It may seem tastier at first to the person who's drinking it, but ultimately everyone suffers as a result... > -- > Cédric > > > -- Kevin Wright gtalk / msn : [email protected] <[email protected]>mail: [email protected] vibe / skype: kev.lee.wright quora: http://www.quora.com/Kevin-Wright twitter: @thecoda "My point today is that, if we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as "lines produced" but as "lines spent": the current conventional wisdom is so foolish as to book that count on the wrong side of the ledger" ~ Dijkstra -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
