On Aug 13, 2011, at 10:36 AM, Reinier Zwitserloot wrote: > > > On Saturday, August 13, 2011 6:09:49 PM UTC+2, Craig Kelley wrote: > > If your idea is so simple that it only takes a month to reverse- > engineer, then the idea must be somewhat trivial (one-click > shopping). Instead we have companies spending billions on building > patent war chests -- not innovating with the money. > > > > Cedric isn't defending the current system; he's trying to argue that we > should be looking at reform and not abolishment. This patent war chest > business isn't liked by anyone. The more nuanced discussion going on right > now (or at least, what I'm advocating here) is that such reform is a pipe > dream; it'll never happen - the kinds of messes we see today are inevitable > for the software industry. As such, whilst abolishments has its downsides > too, its got a lot less of them than the current system (or any hypothetical > system with reforms in place). > > In other words, Cedric's painted picture of "Oh, won't somebody think of the > poor would-be startups which will never even get founded because their > would-be founders would no longer dare to try it if a big corporation can > just push out a cheap ripoff, throw their marketing department at it, and > crush them!" doesn't fly for two entirely different reasons: > > (A) That's not really how it works. If that's how it worked, twitter would be > dead, and Google Buzz would be going nuts. No such luck for google. They had > to go back to the drawing boards and come up with a superior solution (which > I believe google plus is), and that IS catching on. Evidently the techie > buying public is a bit more discerning, and bigcorps can't just come up with > the better product just by throwing their money around. > > (B) That really is how it works. Bummer. Life aint fair. Laws exist to > redress unfairness but its silly to argue "This part of life isn't fair, that > MUST be fixed, so we should keep trying for years and years to come up with > different law forms to address it". One must accept that for some things no > law can feasibly be written to redress the imbalance. Startups will have to > eke out an advantage in some other way. > > > Take your pick, either way the conclusion is: Software patents are bad.
+1. However, that doesn't make them evil ;-) Ralph -- 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.
