Ok, I've managed in reading everything, and I can declare that as usual
this kind of debate is useless :-) Off-topic digressions are more
interesting than the main thread conclusions. That's because in spite of
the majority here declares themselves "secular", almost all opinions are
not backed up by sound quantitative arguments, but by religious points.
Frankly the only one that tried to address the quantitative point is
Cèdric, when he points out that we have clear the damage US are doing,
but we've not evaluated the advantages (BTW, Ricky, I'm a swinging
voter, but I won't be offended if you say I'm a right-wing techie ;-).
Of course neither Cèdric is able to provide quantitative arguments, I've
said that he is stressing the fact that we lack them. We lack them
because we are techies and we'd rather think in terms of "money", not
"technology", "innovation", etc... without precise metrics.
So let me pose some provocative questions:
1. We're all pissed off by e.g. the Oracle-vs-Google suit (and the
others, but let's focus on an example). Potentially, it is destructive
because it could stop Android. But so far did it stop Android? It
doesn't seem so. I've seen major Android releases going on, and sales
going on. If it is arranged as most of people things, it will just end
up in money exchanged between Google and Oracle. What really hurts me is
that at the end of the process lawyers are making lots of money
basically out of void. But this is a wider argument; for instance, I'm
pissed off by excessive money made by actors, singers, soccer players,
etc. It's just another problem.
2. Things, of course, are very different when the sued subject is a
small corporate or a single developer that can't afford expensive lawyer
and basically it is forced to shut down. I really sympathize with him,
because he's a techie. But from the economy point of view, he just
counts nothing. Economy, remember it? It's all about money.
3. Nobody seems to have pointed out a simple, but really meaningful
fact. AFAIK, none, and I repeat NONE, of the
techies-that-managed-to-turn-into-big-business-men have ever spent a
word against patents (I mean, patents in general, not those specifical
patents that are hurting their own corporate). I mean, take Brin and
Page as an example. They are techie grown up, right? So, wouldn't you
expect that a techie that "gets the power" will immediately use it
against patents? Instead, no way. I bet that if something here ever
becomes a big business man, he'll immediately change his mind. Aren't
you wondering why?
My point is simple. Software is not that different than other
"patentable" things. There are two problems: one, the USPTO is crazy,
two, above all software patents must expire quickly. That's because
patents must expire in a time inversely proportional to the rate of
evolution of the related technology, and software is faster than any
other patentable thing. If you look at all the suites around here,
you'll find that most are related to patents that are old or very old.
If software patents expired in a few years, patent holders would have
the time to monetize their investment, and there wouldn't be all the
crazy things that we see.
Of course, I too lack the quantitative approach. I can't tell whether,
from a business perspective (= money) a short-term expiring software
patent would make sense, and how many years should be the expiration
time. But I'm a techie too, otherwise I'd not be here.
--
Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager
Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere."
java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici - www.tidalwave.it/people
[email protected]
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