On Saturday 11 November 2006 20:21, M Harris wrote: > On Sunday 05 November 2006 05:24, you wrote: > > Re: software patentability: > > I ask this in all seriousness; I don't have a particular > > pre-conceived bias one way or the other: > > > > Why would assembling a collections of "objects" (as in C-objects) > > together to perform some function be any different that assembling > > a collection of resistors, capacitors and active devices together > > to form a "circuit" (which is certainly patentable)? > > hi Tony, > > Great question. I asked it also, as I was thinking through > this... > > The answer is simple, but in order to answer it you need to ask > another question.... how is "software" like or unlike a collection of > resistors and capacitors assembled on a circuit board... compare and > contrast. > > The circuit board containing resistors and capacitors is a > physical (meta-physical) construction comprised of real objects > manufactured from "stuff" that we generally call matter (we can touch > it). Software is text.
Software is not text. Software is the pure essence of mechanism operating only on information. Text is just a means of encoding information. Programmers are applied mathematicians. The basis of all software is mathematical logic of one sort or another. > The point is that software (as a medium) is only text, like a > play, a novel, a short story, a poem... or a recipe in a cookbook. It > is a set of symbols which can be read (by another person, or by a > machine).... it is text, plain and simple. Textual representation is not the essence of software. Software is complexly structured (like knowledge) but to convey from its point of origin (a person's mind) to a machine where it can be made precise and thence executed requires serialization. That serial form is a programming language. It's analogous to human language insofar as both are serial representations of complexly structured information and knowledge. > Text is protected by copyright (or copyleft... as I see it) and > is not patentable. Software is text, and as such should be protected > by copyright (or copyleft) and should not be patentable any more than > a recipe in a cookbook (designed to be read and "executed" by a chef > in a kitchen). The recipe in the cookbook, and any other software > objects, are both text.... protected by copyright perhaps (or > copyleft) but not patentable. Again, software _is not_ text. It is mechanism. It is logic. It is ideas. Text is only the way it is externalized from its point of conception in a human mind (or, in some cases, from another program). > As a side note... some software ( none if it is intellectual > property in my view) can also be viewed the same way most of us view > mathematics. No mathematical "truth" can be patented. Much of > software (if not all...) is similar to mathematical truth... whether > trivial or not... and should not be patentable for the same reason. > This is of course a minor point to the real answer... which is that > software is text and should be protected as text... not as a physical > (meta-physical) object. Apart from you misconception about the essential nature of software, I agree that patents are an inappropriate way of providing legal protections for programs. Copyright and trade secret law is applicable and mostly adequate. But if you think software patents are bad, gene patents will make you apoplectic. Well, it does to me... Randall Schulz --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
