On 4 Jun 2004, at 12:23 AM, Tim Churches wrote:
On Fri, 2004-06-04 at 03:01, will ross wrote:
[1] the foss process in and of itself disintermediates the patent system as it is perceived by (and abused by) the patentistas
Not so. FOSS is a) heavily dependent on existing "intellectual property"
protection regimes - specifically, copyright. b) FOSS products are just
as liable to the threat of or actual legal action over patent
infringements as commercial software c) you can't depend on copyright
law but then say patent law doesn't matter. Consistent approaches are to
i) obrogate Western style "intellectual property" protection regimes
altogether - a desirable and possibly viable option for developing
countries, as George Monbiot points out or ii) try to reform the
existing system. Of course i) can only be done at a national level - it
is fruitless and ill-advised for individuals or small groups to act
illegally and flout existing laws.
note that i said "as it is perceived by (and abused by)..."
you commented on patent absurdities, and supported it with a 2002 article from monbiot representing views of anti-globalisation activists who have long standing and valid critiques of the bretton woods hegemony. (have you read chomsky's "hegemony or survival"? it's good stuff, but not really relevant to oshca.)
i raised an alternate plausibility regarding patents which is poorly appreciated by politically correct anti-globalisation fundamentalists: that the open source process itself will radically alter both the nature of patents as an economic system and the balance of power under the patenting regime, re-tilting the currently skewed playing field to the immediate benefit of creative producers and away from the highly capitalised exclusionists who are abusing patent ownership as a deliberate business domination strategy.
i supported my suggestion with a reference to a current book by webber, along with a relevant quote about the shift from scarce access to information before open source, to abundant access to information with open source.
you ridicule my book, ignore my suggestions, and restate your original points more strongly. gee, tim, you do a great impression of an ugly american who, having discovered that his english isn't understood, raises his voice and adds a bad spanish accent to the same words in hopes of being better understood the second time around.
i heard you the first time.
[2] increasing the success of open source solutions reduces the relevance of outrageous patents
How? What is teh logic behind this assertion?
it's in #1. if webber is right and open source processes revolutionise the balance of intellectual property ownership under the current laws, then this reduces the relevance of outrageous claims (like microsoft patenting the double click, or sco's unix ownership lawsuits). i'm not saying this is so, only that it is an interesting observation raised by webber.
[3] patent "reform" in any country is not immediately relevant
[a] because patent abuse shenanigans are a sign of creative failure
(and of foss success)
Creative impoverishment never stopped any corporation from trampling others.
or from going down the tubes once they switch revenue streams from creative innovation to legal extortion.
[b] because in the long cycle strengthening the foss portfolio builds an unassailable commons
Are are saying that the popularity and thus political sway of FOSS will protect it against legal challenges under patent law? FOSS will need to be a LOT more popular than it is now for that to be true.
no, i'm suggesting that as the foss commons increases its breadth and depth, proprietary solutions and vendor lock in lose economic traction. my observations are based on evolutionary economics, not geopolitics or legislative activism. i'm suggesting that foss processes route around the damage of predatory patent nonsense and i'm suggesting that this is an unforeseen solution arriving beneath the radar. is it too little too late? time will tell.
[c] see #1
will we ever disabuse the patentistas from their fundamental desire to sue their way to the top? no, their tactics remain valid on a microeconomic level, it's their strategic dependence upon private knowledge portfolios we are shredding with an asymmetric foss assault at a macroeconomic level.
FOSS as a force at a macroeconomic level? Now or in the near future? Really?
current asymmetric disintermediation from foss has macroeconomic potential, if current trends scale.
am i outraged by the disneyfication of global culture? not really, i have trouble prioritising rage as an appropriate response.
am i amused by patent madness among the globalisation elite? yes, i am amused by it.
microsoft patents the double click? let them, they must be more desperate than i thought.
can i stop masses of people who are unable to think for themselves from
behaving like idiots? no, but i can contribute towards a long term
solution by banding together with reasonable people who actually think
for a change, about a change, and who build the change.
if at the end of the day fools remain in hot pursuit of absurd power monopolies, tell me how this is different from any other day in the past, say, few thousand years?
Those are valid individualist responses to the situation. Forgive some of us if our natural responses are more political.
shrug. political organising can be helpful if the numbers are large enough, but such victories are temporary in my experience. chronic political crisis syndrome bored me away from acute engagement in politics long ago. i distrust political solutions. "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." for a real revolution, make foss the most advanced and utilitarian solutions on the planet, then see how patent hoarders crumble. and yet, at the end of the day, even foss solutions in the ascendancy won't get a majority of people to think for themselves.
meanwhile, weber's book is excellent. here's a couple of decent quotes:
"Property in open source is configured around the right to distribute, not the right to exclude. ... Is it possible to build a working economic system around the core notion of property rights as distribution?"
"The open source process has generalizable characteristics, it is a generic production process, and it can and will spread to other kinds of production."
"There is no state of nature on the Internet. Knowledge does not want to be 'free' (or for that matter, 'owned') more than it wants to be anything else."
Yes, good quotes, but orthogonal to the issue of the slow strangulation of innovation, including FOSS, by software and algorithmic patents.
tangential, not orthogonal. i hear your geopolitical argument and i encourage you to be engaged in the process. in response to your politics i ask relevant and tangential economic questions: can robust foss solutions strangle the agendas of patent abusers from within the patent system? what if the current patent regime can be radicalised from the inside, renormed by viral foss infestations? what if we really want a uniform global patent regime as fertile ground for a foss ascendancy (a scenario in which monbiot would be on the wrong side of history)?
these are ideas i tossed into the discussion because i'm reading webber's book.
no need to get bent orthogonally about it. <g>
[wr]
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