“The simple question ‘what’s wrong with software patents?’ stirs up controversy and divides the IT industry into two camps like no other. Every group has their own ideology about software patents. Those who don’t like them claim that they are anti-competitive, that they are tools used by industry giants to crush free and open software, that they are bad for innovation, that they are monopolies. Those who like them claim that they are simply units of intellectual property, to be traded like any other commodity.”
Software patents are silly.
Thieves and commies, that is.
It’s no different with software than it is with anything else.
Software patent are not property right.
I own my computer , I dont own the patent that is used to make up the technology in my computer.
I own my computer , I dont own the patent that is used to make up the technology in my computer.
Exactly. So you and your Lunix friends can stop trying to steal that technology.
“Exactly”
Dont claim that you get it , your comment show otherwise.
THAT technology belong to me. I bought a copy and am entitled a copy of the blueprint so that I can fix it and use it as I wish , as long as I dont try to make a Hardware copy and rename it and sell it as something else.
Its the same thing with software , I am entitled to the source code so that I can use it as I wish and am able to fix it when problem arise.
Thats why the patent is screwy among other things.
I bought a copy
Yes.
and am entitled a copy of the blueprint
No. Do you live here on earth?
Thats why the patent is screwy among other things.
That has nothing to do with the patent system.
Edited 2006-10-31 21:53
>I bought a copy
Yes.
> and am entitled a copy of the blueprint
No. Do you live here on earth?
My understanding is that his little sub-topic was covering Linux (which you mis-typed as “Lunix”). And, indeed, the GPL does give him that right.
However, that does not apply to many other software licenses. I assume your post was referring back to those (to the exlcusion of the “Lunix” you brought up).
Your post was modded down, yet violated no rules. I up-modded it one.
“No. Do you live here on earth? ”
The answer was Yes :
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/prodinfoCategory?lc=en&cc=ca&dlc…
Sorry to burst your delussionnal dictatorial based on traitor and censured McCarthy Babbling.
Yes , I do , you dont ? Must be why you have such problem with reality.
By Law , for repair and maintenance purpose , I am entitled to the blueprint and specification of everything I bought.
There is probably a bit of a misunderstanding here, for I know of no such law, though I’m not about to claim to be a lawyer. But I am a draftsman.
I doubt you’ll ever come close to getting blueprints for 99% of what you own, regardless of whether it’s for legitimate purposes or not. Lists of replacement parts, sure. Schematics? They’re out there for most electronics, albeit expensive. Specifications? yea. but…
Manufacturer’s aren’t going to give you the blueprints though, even to trivial things: I assure you, you’ll not be able to get the assembly drawings (‘blueprints’) of say a transformer enclosure from GE, even as it’s just a box with fins you could figure out with a measuring tape in 10 minutes.
For something to be patented, one of the requirements is that the design documents (specifications, blueprints, manufacturing instructions and so forth) are to be made available*. Anyone can ask the patents office to view this information, even if the manufacturer doesn’t provide it themselves. This is for the reason that people need to be able to know exactly what is being patented so they can 1)avoid infringing it, and 2) consider licencing an existing patent rather than re-inventing the wheel so to speak.
If software is to be patented, one requirement must be that the source code is available at the patents office.
Personally, I don’t think either existing patent or copyright laws adequately cover software – it is in a IP class of its own, and should be treated accordingly.
*If they don’t want to patent the invention, they can put it under the umbrella of trade secrecy.
Edited 2006-11-02 02:47
Specifications, yes, but the depth required of patent documents is rarely sufficient (excluding simple devices) to be considered blueprints, atleast from what I’ve seen skipping through the US & Canadian online patent files. They’re operationally sufficient, but often require an indepth knowledge of their given field – that is, above and beyond blueprint reading skills – for anything near actual construction; or even maintainance.
Patents for “real things” have seemingly served the world quite well, it’s too bad that hasn’t carried over to IP cleanly.
Patents are IP. They make a lot of sense for physical devices and chemical products, but not software (as currently implemented).
Everything.
1) Patent should be awarded to the inventor.
2) Should not be awarded on evolution of software or innovations.
3) Should not exist for software as its not a new invention.
4) They should be free to everyone , it system should also investigate prior art.
5) Should not be use as a litigation or stopping someone else products.
(1) and (5) Undermines the whole point of a patent. Why take out a patent if you can’t benefit from it? Sure, lots of companies take out patents spuriously, and use them as clubs to beat competitors down, but there is still a fundamental purpose to the patent system (to encourage innovation) that is not served if they cannot be used to stop competing products. What about companies who spend years of R&D to develop technology nobody else has? Often*, these are small companies who do not have the resources to bring a product to market, and must depend on licensing the IP to someone who can, or selling the company (and its IP) to someone who can.
As a society, we are long past the point where innovation can happen “on the cheap”. Technology continues to progress, but the cost of that progress is astounding. Wheras the original jet engine designs were created on grants to private individuals, today the cost of making just incrementally better designs is measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
That said, I do agree with you that the patent system in this country is quite generally broken. It is far too easily used as a tool of abuse, instead of as a tool to foster innovation. It is far too easy to get a patent these days, especially in the field of software where its often hard to judge exactly how much unique thought went into a design. We need people in the patent office who can hold applications to the critereon of being “novel even to a practitioner in the field.”** Moreover, I’m opposed to one specific class of software patents: patents on algorithms. Algorithms should not be patentable! Algorithms are merely expressions of mathematical truth, and are thus no more patentable than algebra or calculus. Some of the patents that exist on certain types of pointer analysis in compilers are ridiculous for that reason.
*) Small outfits can afford to hire dedicated groups of specialists, then bet the livlihood of the company on a particular piece of technology in a way that larger companies often cannot. That’s why you have small companies like Scaled Composites doing R&D that is way out of proportion with their size as a business.
**) Interestingly, one of the first patent examiners was Thomas Jefferson, during the period from 1700 to 1703, at which time the role of the patent examiner was given to the vice president and the secretary of state (this was Jefferson’s idea). During that time, he rigorously examined each of 114 patents that came across his desk. Think of that situation: a man of Jefferson’s extraordinary intellect, a leading natural philosopher and inventor of his day, was in charge of deciding what was novel and what was not. Compare that to whatever rube gave Amazon the patent for one-click shopping!
Edited 2006-10-31 22:23
There’s nothing wrong with patents.
There’s something wrong with the patent office.
There’s something wrong with the patent office.
I agree with this. I don’t have a problem with the idea of software patents, so long as they are centered around a very specific technology, such as a particular type of audio or video codec. However, when it gets to the point where people are patenting the concept of clicking on a command button, then it goes too far.
Edited 2006-10-31 21:27
There’s something wrong with the patent office.
Yeah. They’re understaffed, underfunded, and get all the blame for those one-in-a-million minor, esoteric slip-ups.
There’s something wrong with the morons who take a couple of extremely rare, isolated incidents and use them to portray patent office employees as incompetent and the patent office as evil.
[sarcasm]People can’t be wrong on the Intarweb. Why would they lie?[/sarcasm]
Just the other day I got an email saying http://www.ljk-sang.com wanted to give me a $9.99 refund! lol
There is everything wrong with patents, as the author describes so well.
I’ll do as the author recommended:
Thom, why do you think there’s nothing wrong with patents?
Remember from the article: Anyone who argues that it is “right” or “wrong” to define and enforce certain types of property must prove this using more than just rhetoric and dogma.
It’s a wise, pragmatique view, the author has.
BTW: Thom, please reply on the mail from me sent october 31st, 2006 at 01:28 CET. You have one week before I take legal action.
Edited 2006-10-31 21:34
“There is everything wrong with patents, as the author describes so well.
Wait a sec. Does not that statement do the exact opposite of what the articles author suggests? Your response says “it is because this guy over there says so.” Not much of an argument.
I wouldn’t complain about a simple statement not having a good arguement to back it up when you won’t bother to do the same.
And for the last thing you mentioned. It’s none of my business. Keep it out of forum posts.
As for my two cents. The suggestion that there is a problem with the patent office suggests to me that there is also a problem with patents themselves. That problem really isn’t particularily simple and unfortunately I don’t have a solution to give you.
If I invent something, I have a right to protect my invention. At the same time, If I come up with a one in a million idea, three hundred other people in the US came up with that idea too. And those 299 other people have a right to protect their idea too.
Edited 2006-10-31 22:55
Nobody says you have a right to protection of “your”
idea. If you had the right to protection of your idea there would be no reason to apply for patents.
You apply for patents because you do _not_ have the right to protection _unless_ authorities decide otherwise.
That’s the main problem of patents, and the reason why it it can be considered anti-competitive (though I doubt it can be applied to all patents).
But I do have the right to protection of my idea. A patent helps provide a legal basis for that protection.
Your right though. This is the problem with patents. Many are anti-competative. Many are not.
The system must protect my inventions without preventing further inovation.
The system must protect my inventions without preventing further inovation.
That one is going to be difficult, unless you are willing to abandon software patents.
Perhaps a sort of extended copyright?
I am generally opposed to software patents. However, these are really just a tool. This tool is very easy to abuse and misuse, and there are those that thrive upon trading in these items. Some might call it strong-arming, or even extortion. It seems the term for such people (and groups, I assume) is a “Patent Troll”[1][2]. They contribute no benefit to software development, but seek ways to squeeze money out of other groups or organizations. Unisys, anyone?
[1] http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/07/10/8…
[2] http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_17/b3981070.htm
EDIT: Added links
Edited 2006-10-31 21:23
Though I probably agree with the author’s conclusions, the article is non the less stupid and uniformed, as becomes aparent after reading only a few lines.
No, there is an intrinsinc economic difference between so called intellectual property and physical property like land.
This difference is well understand and described in economic theory.
Example:
This great article by Stiglitz:
http://www.undp.org/globalpublicgoods/globalization/glossary.html
And no, the process of turning public goods into private property certainly isn’t “the tragedy of the commons”. On the contrary, Hardin, the author of the famous article with this title would probably have approved of turning things into private property.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
So all these economical UNPROVEN theories (as none is proven in economics) are godly axiomatic truths and anyone who dares to say otherwise is either a commie or an ignorant right?
*cough* remember 30s? Microeconomy? hmm?
“So all these economical UNPROVEN theories (as none is proven in economics) are godly axiomatic truths and anyone who dares to say otherwise is either a commie or an ignorant right?”
Oh, everybody is free to disagree with economical theories, though the difference between intellectual property and other goods is pretty obvious.
The author however doesn’t disagree, he simply ignores them. I suspect because he simply doesn’t have the slightest clue about them.
I don’t have a problem per se with software patents. Software is analogous to machinery in the physical world; hence, it deserves protection when there are truly novel and unique invention claims.
That said, I think that there are far too many patent vampires whose sole function is to suck companies dry. I would modify existing patent law to contain a provision that, in order to gain a patent award from the USPTO, one must show that the invention is incorporated into a going commercial concern (ie. product or service). Because, without being incorporated into something useful, it’s pretty obvious that one cannot really experience financial damages. This would eliminate the vast number of patent troll cases — because most trolls have zero interest in producing something that is commercially viable.
The author (Pieter) states: “We are, as citizens, property of the state, and in some countries we can still be traded, bought, and sold, and make money for our owners.?”
I don’t know about United States, Europe, Japan, China, Canada, Israel, et al., but the constitution of Brazil, its Civil code, its Penal code, and, as far I know, no other applicable law made me, as a Brazilian citizen, a property of the Brazilian state.
Where in Europe (I doubt that the name ‘Pieter’ could be of an American) a citizen is a property of the state?
Well, nowhere I think. People are not property where I come from.
If you are not the property of the state, then why
are you supplying its livelihood by paying taxes?
Look up the meaning of real estate — the state owns
the ground you live on, how does it not own you?
Extra points for rayiner for the footnotes!
For me, it is not the patents I have a problem with, but the entire idea of intellectual property.
Software patents aren’t complete.
A typical patent is issued on a certain date. And a certain number of years later (20 for typical mechanical patents I think) the patent loses its authority.
In the interim the design is given to the public. When the patent rights are lost, the design is still public.
With a software patent you get the rights, but it’s completely seperate from your design. Instead of designing a powered plow and after 20 years giving the secret to your improved design you patent the idea of a powered plow. Then, in 20 years no one knows how you did it, because your source code had nothing to do with the patent and neither did your software design.
Accompany all software patents with UML that describes the implementation (the part being patented); then we’ll talk about valid software patents.
I’ve _never_ seen a valid one of these.
But companies won’t do this, because it’s more advantageous for them to just keep this a secret as it’s awfully hard to reverse engineer anyway. Plows, on the other hand, are awfully easy to reverse engineer: Hence, patents.
So what’s my thesis: Software patents, currently, are patenting the wrong thing. They don’t patent designs, they patent what’s being designed. If there’s another way to design it, you’re SOL because they own the idea.
If you do them this way I think you’ll find they rarely get used. They’ll probably only end up used in security and networking systems.
The problem with software patents, is that they’re not patents. It’s more like buying your own personal law.
The essence of open source is thievery.
Thats why OSS hates patents.
The essence of open source is thievery.
Thats why OSS hates patents.
//The essence of open source is thievery.//
OK, I have to admit to a huge curiosity here. In other words, I’ll bite.
Exactly how is it that a large number of people co-operatively sharing authorship and usage of their own software source code via Internet collaboration can in any way be considered in your world view to be theivery?
Edited 2006-11-01 01:01
Exactly how is it that a large number of people co-operatively sharing authorship and usage of their own software source code via Internet collaboration can in any way be considered in your world view to be theivery?
The goal is to clone (steal) software that non-OSS companies develop and to give it away.
Samba is a classic example. The goal of Samba was to steal the file sharing business of Microsoft.
I would have no objection if the Samba project was dedicated to creating a better file sharing protocol. But it isn’t.
Linux’s goal was to clone Unix.
OpenOffice’s goal was to destroy Microsoft’s Office Suite by replicating its functionality.
mono’s goal is to replicate the .NET frameowrk and C# and VB.NET and ASP.NET
etc etc.
I do think its hilarious that Oracle is doing to RedHat what RedHat had hoped to do to Unix.
“The goal is to clone (steal) software that non-OSS companies develop and to give it away.
Samba is a classic example. The goal of Samba was to steal the file sharing business of Microsoft.
I would have no objection if the Samba project was dedicated to creating a better file sharing protocol. But it isn’t.
Linux’s goal was to clone Unix.
OpenOffice’s goal was to destroy Microsoft’s Office Suite by replicating its functionality.
mono’s goal is to replicate the .NET frameowrk and C# and VB.NET and ASP.NET
etc etc.
I do think its hilarious that Oracle is doing to RedHat what RedHat had hoped to do to Unix.”
——————————————————-
Cloning the functionality of a software program is neither illegal nor in any moral sense remotely equivalent to theft.
It is no more theft for OpenOffice to attempt to copy the functionality of MS Office than it is for Chrysler to build an automobile that does basically the same thing as one made by Ford. It is entirely legal, and forms the basis of a competitive marketplace.
There would be a difference if OpenOffice stole the source code for MS Office and simply used it to compile a new binary, which they simply renamed – that would indeed be theft. But since they independently developed their own source code for their own binary, without using a single line of the MS Office code (AFAIK), they have acted entirely within the law and in the spirit of a competitive marketplace.
Imitating is not stealing, especially when an entirely novel means of achieving the goal is used.
The goal of Samba was to offer a competitive product to the MS version with similar functionality. the goal of Linux was to replicate the functionality of UNIX and create competition in the marketplace. Nothing wrong with that, in fact it is entirely healthy.
I suppose you would also condemn Corel for independently developing an office suite to rival MS Office? Or Lotus?
>> The goal is to clone (steal) software that non-OSS companies develop and to give it away.
Wow… Just… wow… I’m no fan of OSS, but that has to be the most special thing I’ve heard in a LONG time – in the same way some olympics are special.
That’s not theft, that’s called COMPETITION… Used to be other companies that made COMPETING products, LONG before MS office existed. Wordperfect, Wordstar, 1-2-3, Quattro, dBase, Paradox, Harvard graphics…
So what you are saying is all those were ‘stealing’?
God forbid anyone try to compete, huh?
God forbid anyone try to compete, huh?
Well, isn’t that what patents are for? A legal protection against competition for a period of time in exchange for your secrets on how you did what you did.
I’m just playing devil’s advocate.
//Samba is a classic example. The goal of Samba was to steal the file sharing business of Microsoft. I would have no objection if the Samba project was dedicated to creating a better file sharing protocol. But it isn’t.//
Very funny.
You do know that Microsoft’s client/server protocol is just an obscuration of SMB (Server Message Block), don’t you? Later renamed to Common Internet File System (CIFS).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Message_Block
“History
SMB was originally invented by Barry Feigenbaum at IBM to turn DOS “Interrupt 33” local file access into a networked file system, but the most common version is modified heavily by Microsoft. Microsoft merged the SMB protocol with the LAN Manager product they had been developing with 3Com, and continued to add features to the protocol in Windows for Workgroups and later versions of Windows.
SMB was originally designed to run on top of the NetBIOS protocol (which itself is typically run on NetBEUI, IPX/SPX or NBT), though SMB can also run on top of TCP/IP directly, a feature introduced with Windows 2000. “SMB the protocol” is not to be confused with the SMB services that run on it, nor with NetBIOS, nor with the DCE/RPC services that use SMB as an authenticated Inter-process communication channel (over named pipes), nor with the “Network Neighborhood” protocols which primarily but not exclusively run as datagram services directly on the NetBIOS transport.
At around the time when Sun Microsystems announced WebNFS [1], Microsoft coincidentally launched an initiative in 1998 to rename SMB to Common Internet File System (CIFS), and added more features, including support for symbolic links, hard links, larger file sizes and an attempt at supporting direct connection without all the NetBIOS trimmings – an effort that was largely experimental and required further refinement.”
“SMB” is where the name “Samba” derives from. Microsoft stole this from IBM in the first place!
“Because of the importance of the SMB protocol in interacting with the dominant Microsoft Windows platform, coupled with the heavily modified nature of the SMB implementation present in that platform, the Samba project was created to provide a free implementation of a compatible SMB client and server for use with non-Microsoft operating systems.”
There is the purpose of Samba for you. To compete. Provide competition. Provide a competitive product. Provide people with an alternative.
Microsoft cannot stand competition.
//”Linux’s goal was to clone Unix.”//
Linux is a kernel. It was written in the first instance by Linus Torvalds as a hobby project for is newly-acquired 386 computer to see if he could do a better job than his professor’s effort for that same platform, which was Minix.
The greater part of modern distributions, which should more properly be called GNU/Linux, comes from the GNU project. The goal of that was (and still is) explained here:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html
Once again, it turns out that the goal was to re-liberate software that was originally open but which had been co-opted by for-profit commercial interests.
//”OpenOffice’s goal was to destroy Microsoft’s Office Suite by replicating its functionality.”//
OpenOffice is based on code that was originally a commercial wordprocessor program. It couldn’t compete. The company that made it went bust. Sun bought them out, and they couldn’t afford to develop the code themselves, so they donated the code to open source.
So in this case the original goal was to compete commercially with MS Office. That effort got squished by a much larger competitor. So the only way to compete (and again, provide people with a competing product, provide people with choice) was to open up the source and develop it with a mutual-benefit-collaboration.
There is no theivery here (other than the original thievery by Microsoft of Server Message Block, and by AT&T of the progenitor code of Unix).
Edited 2006-11-01 04:04
Oh, don’t forget how Unix was “stolen” from Multics… which was “stolen” from CTSS.
Samba goal has always been to duplicate Windows NT and later Windows 2000+ fileservers.
Later it added the goal of acting as Windows domain controllers.
It was never to do anything new or better.
The goal was to mimic windows.
The eventual goal, of course, it to completely mimic a Windows NT Domain Controller.
http://samba.org/samba/docs/SambaIntro.html
Netbios is not SMB. SMB is an application level protocol which runs over NBF (NetBEUI / NetBIOS) or NetBIOS over TCP/IP or NetBIOS over IPX/SPX.
Microsoft use of SMB came very early on:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/timothydevans/smb.htm
“In 1987 Microsoft announced the LAN Manager program and in 1988 IBM announced the OS/2 LAN Server, both use versions of the Server Message Block Protocol. Enhancements and changes to the protocol have been made and a history can be found at:
“http://samba.anu.edu.au/cifs/docs/smb-history.html“
Accusing Microsoft of stealing something it created is ridiculous, but is typical of the lies spread by OSS fanatics to justify their hatred of Microsoft.
And your point being? There is nothing wrong with duplicating the functionality of someone else’s software. Mimicking a network domain controller to create an alternative, competitive program is fine and perfectly legal (i.e., not theft), and it would only be stealing if they used Microsoft’s original source code without permission and compiled a binary with it, then claimed it was their own work. Since they wrote their own code, and did not use any MS code, they have stolen nothing. Whether or not Samba does something new or better or not is irrelevant – they are simply creating a competing product that is interoperable with an existing product – this is perfectly normal in a healthy market economy.
As someone who is quite neutral in regards to OSS and CSS (I am not a programmer so I couldn’t give a flying fish wether the source code is available to me or not), I fail to see what being open or closed source has to do with it.
There is no difference in someone creating a full office suite that clones MS Office down to the last detail as a commercial closed source product and someone doing the same thing as an open source product, provided they do not use any of Microsoft’s original code in doing so.
Get it?
I think that you should probably read the GPL and maybe some GNU writing. Open Source Software is often more of a hindrance for developers than an aid. Sure, seeing source code is great, but trying to figure out if something is legitimate under the GPL is a royal pain.
So why would the GPL exist? It guarantees rights for users. As a user you should care. Afterall, open or closed, you agree to a LEGAL CONTRACT when you use software.
Have you been reading your EULA’s?
//Accusing Microsoft of stealing something it created is ridiculous, but is typical of the lies spread by OSS fanatics to justify their hatred of Microsoft.//
Sigh!
Microsoft derived their client/server networking protocol by adapting the Server Messge Block protocol invented by IBM for the IBM PC.
Samba derived their client/server networking protocol by adapting the Server Messge Block protocol invented by IBM for the IBM PC.
Up until a certain point in time, Microsoft collaborated with the Samba team, to the extent of sharing specification documents, with the stated intent of achieving interoperability between Linux & Windows systems. Suddenly, Microsoft withdrew their collaboration, and then they went to considerable lengths to obscure the protocol.
Those are the facts. Deal with it.
Microsoft derived their client/server networking protocol by adapting the Server Messge Block protocol invented by IBM for the IBM PC.
Heavily modifying SMB to include LAN Manager extensions is not the same as stealing the protocol off the wire by sniffing it and then only cloning it.
The essence of OSS is thievery and always has been.
“The essence of OSS is thievery and always has been.”
What an absurd proposition. Whether or not a piece of software is open source has absolutely nothing to do with theft.
In fact, it is far easier to create a closed source application by stealing code, since few people would be able to tell from the resulting binary if it had been compiled from code written by someone else. On the other hand, it would be very easy to tell if an open source program had used stolen code, since it will be made available for scrutiny.
Cloning the functionality of a program by writing your own code and using your own methods is not theft, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Back to the analogy of cars, you can build a car that has the same interface and functionality as a car made by a competitor – stearing wheel in the same place, brake and accelerator pedals in the same place, similar design features (4 wheels, engine, seats etc) – without in anyway infringing on anyone’s patents, and without stealing anything.
There is nothing wrong with say Mazda producing a clone of a Ferrari, provided that Mazda does not infringe any of Ferraris patents or trademarks in doing so.
Similarly, there is nothing wrong with a software house producing an office suite that mimics MS Office, provided they write their own code and do not use Microsoft’s. It makes no difference whether they keep the source code open or closed.
Stop throwing out red herrings – OSS has nothing to do with theft.
By your reasoning NotParker, every car manufacturer is stealing business from Ford. Hell, EVERY business is stealing from FORD because he invented the production line. All camera makers are stealing from Kodak too right? And all publishers are stealing from Gutenberg. What the hell are you smoking? MS and Apple didnt invent the windowed gui or the mouse or networking. They ACTUALLY DID steal it from AT&T.
Xerox Parcs. If AT&T owned Xerox Parcs at the time I’m unaware of it. AT&T had Bell Labs, which brought us Unix.
By your reasoning NotParker, every car manufacturer is stealing business from Ford.
Aside from the fact that Ford didn’t invent the car … which car manufactuers cloned the Model T?
As far as I remember, early car manufacturers were building variations on the car and most were very different, and none were clones.
I’m not saying that Samba shouldn’t be able to offer file sharing, but I suggest the world would be a better place if they had chosen to create a new file sharing protocol that was an inprovement on SMB with better client/server software.
Kind of like what Microsoft did with SMB/Lan Manager and Novell did with IPX.
Be creative … not thieves.
The idea that thievery is a noble asperation is disgusting.
You didn’t read a word he said did you? He never said they stole the car. He said they stole the assembly line.
//I’m not saying that Samba shouldn’t be able to offer file sharing, but I suggest the world would be a better place if they had chosen to create a new file sharing protocol that was an inprovement on SMB with better client/server software.
Kind of like what Microsoft did with SMB/Lan Manager and Novell did with IPX.
Be creative … not thieves.
The idea that thievery is a noble asperation is disgusting.//
Microsoft did not invent the client/server “file sharing” concept.
Novell did.
The whole “thrust” of networking protocols is to connect machines over a network. That is the very purpose of such software.
From the very start, this always meant machines of different types, connected via a network. Micrsoft’s initial forays into networking also had this goal – to connect machines of different types and allow file sharing between them.
Suddenly, Microsoft tried to switch the whole purpose of their networking software. They re-purposed it from its original “connect machines over a network” design goals to become “connect only Windows machines over a network (try to exclude machines of other types)”. This move was an unambiguous attempted grab for monopoly on the server market for Windows desktop machines, to the exclusion of other competition.
Samba does not “steal” anything at all of Microsoft’s. Samba is innoavitive in that it has a very important feature not available in any other software at all. Samba’s great feature is that it can prevent a Microsoft monopoly. Not even Microsoft’s client/server software can do that!
I should have modded NotParker’s post down because it contained an insult and is libelous, but I didn’t want to waste the mod points.
BTW, the idea of monoply control of a market is the disgusting notion, as it defeats every single tenet of a free market economy. Therefore, every effort to break a monopoly is indeed noble.
Edited 2006-11-01 23:10
The essence of open source is thievery.
Not thievery, Naivete…
People who want to give something away, while still telling others what they can do with it. Either give it away, or keep it… I don’t see a middle ground there.
It’s not theft if the original person was DUMB ENOUGH to give away their hard work in the first place…
Though it is criminal how programmers are falling for the scam that is ‘free software’ left and right… ESPECIALLY on some of these ‘free as in freedom’ licenses with lines like “you can only charge for cost of duplication” – which means how does the original programmer get PAID? It is devaluating the labor of programming – which is probably why entry level programming jobs pay less than 3rd shift at the local ‘quicky mart’.
Again, I hear the business majors (like those who run Oracle) laughing themselves all the way to the bank.
Funny, I used to say Red Hat when I made that comment – guess turnabout is fair play.
“Not thievery, Naivete…
People who want to give something away, while still telling others what they can do with it. Either give it away, or keep it… I don’t see a middle ground there.
It’s not theft if the original person was DUMB ENOUGH to give away their hard work in the first place…”
Strong refutations to these and similar arguments have long been available.
Read the section starting at the heading “Some Easily Rebutted Objections to GNU’s Goals” from this page:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
>> http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
If you mean vague psuedo-hippy babble like:
>> There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work,
>> or seeking to maximize one’s income, as long as one
>> does not use means that are destructive. But the
>> means customary in the field of software today are
>> based on destruction.
>>
>> Extracting money from users of a program by
>> restricting their use of it is destructive because
>> the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways
>> that the program can be used. This reduces the
>> amount of wealth that humanity derives from the
>> program. When there is a deliberate choice to
>> restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate
>> destruction.
Seriously, this type of blatant anti-capitolist nonsense belongs back in the drum circle, not mainstream technical discussions… because flat out:
>> If programmers deserve to be rewarded for
>> creating innovative programs, by the same token
>> they deserve to be punished if they restrict the
>> use of these programs.
Doesn’t put food on the table… which his answer to:
>> The real reason programmers will not starve is
>> that it will still be possible for them to get paid
>> for programming; just not paid as much as now.
Is not an answer anyone getting into programming should want to hear – and you’ll notice NOWHERE does he actually say HOW to get paid for something you are giving away. In FACT, he says ‘nobody’s forcing people to be programmers’ and in general, it often sounds like he doesn’t WANT other people to be programmers… Which is the problem – programming becoming a skill and the province of hobbyists and not a profession – which DOES seem to be his real intent.
Pay particular attention to:
>> Probably programming will not be as lucrative on
>> the new basis as it is now. But that is not an
>> argument against the change. It is not considered
>> an injustice that sales clerks make the salaries
>> that they now do. If programmers made the same,
>> that would not be an injustice either.
That is a marxist statement in the EXTREME!
It’s the EXACT SAME BABBLE you hear out of anarchists, communists, and all the other fringe whackos, and of course misses out that any dumbass with a GED can be a sales clerk, while people spend MONEY going to SCHOOL to become programmers; Tell someone who just spent four years putting themselves ten to twenty years into debt with college loans that they are getting the same pay as a sales clerk… and enjoy the fist in the face. I know people MY AGE (37) that haven’t even chipped away enough of their college debt to even come close to paying it off before they are in the pine box. (Praise be I went the ‘cheap’ route via military service)
Try that same philosophy with doctors, lawyers, or any other profession that takes a sixty to a hundred thousand dollars (private schools) to get a piece of paper for anyone to take you seriously. Hell, even the average 10K debt from public universities is enough to cripple the poor schmucks who find out that’s not enough ‘real’ education for anyone to hire them as anything more than a ‘sales clerk’.
People get bent out of shape when you call OSS folks ‘hippies’ or ‘communists’ – READ that page, what does it look like to you? It’s all 1960’s style hippie feel-good rubbish that is INCREDIBLY naive about human nature and even more naive about what money is, how money works, and why money and capitolism isn’t a bad thing – the same rhetoric as Anarchism and Communism (which while polar opposites politically, are markedly similar in a number of departments).
You’d probably have less people calling them Reds if people like Stallman would quit with the communist manifesto crap…
Programs are products that take labor to create – charging for that labor should not be the ‘great evil’ that the likes of Stallman seem to want it to be… Lemme guess, he thinks glass should be at cost of distribution since it’s just sand and labor? Houses and lumber should be free since it’s just wood and labor? The ONLY difference between a program and a home is method of distribution.
GOD FORBID we put a price tag on labor… and lands sake don’t let one type of labor make more money than another… RIGHT, sound familiar? Sure does to me!
Edited 2006-11-01 05:19
//GOD FORBID we put a price tag on labor… and lands sake don’t let one type of labor make more money than another… RIGHT, sound familiar? Sure does to me! //
There is nothing in any of this that says that programmers should not get paid. The majority of Open Source programmers are in fact paid, only a relatively small percentage remain as volunteer effort.
One charges for support for the software. From the money one charges for the support, one pays the programmers.
The only difference in the whole process compared with closed source software is that the thing that is charged for is the expertise and the service, and not a collection of binary bits on a piece of plastic. Because the “magic binaries” are not what is charged for, there is no need to keep the source secret. Because the source code is not secret, it can be audited and collaborated. Because it is auditable, the end users gain a huge benefit … they can be assured that there is nothing in the code which is against their interest. Because the code can be done via collaboration, the development costs are vastly reduced, and the code is improved via being the product of a meritocracy.
None of this says that programmers don’t get paid.
Who would expect anyone to work for nothing? That is patently ridiculous.
Since the programmers are providing a service, they should get paid like other providers of service, such as Doctors or Lawyers.
Like here, as an example: http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3503886
… or the paid programmers from here:
http://www.osdl.org/about_osdl
http://www.osdl.org/about_osdl/jobs/
include one well-known name.
More:
http://business.newsforge.com/business/04/05/04/1058254.shtml
http://www.opensourcexperts.com/Jobs
http://www.hotlinuxjobs.com/
http://www.opensource.org/advocacy/jobs.php
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2233419193.html
http://www.teledyn.com/help/linux/Jobs/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/forumdisplay.php?forumid=72
http://www.roseindia.net/opensource/open-source-jobs.shtml
http://osuosl.org/
… I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea.
All that the open source method says is that programming code does not have to be kept secret from the users of the code, and it should not be.
Edited 2006-11-01 06:10
I don’t see where he says you shouldn’t charge for programs. All I see is that you shouldn’t restrict their use.
At this point you’re probably thinking: Requiring pay in order to use is a restriction. Good, it is. However, computer programs are complicated and people usually want packaging, books, and support lines: All wonderful, tangible, products and services for which you can make a fair trade.
Whether FOSS is the way to go or not I’m not about to say in a random OSNews post at 1AM. Whether our current EULA based system of licensing software is good or not; that I can do: It sucks. When EULA’s say things like “You may not publish benchmarks of this software” then you know something is wrong. Very wrong.
The manifesto certainly offers the extreme for programmer salaries. I’ll say, with complete certainty, they’ll never pay us what they pay your typical sales clerk. Simply put, few of us would work for that and they don’t have enough of us as it is.
Now, they’re trying. They try by hiring in other countries where the cost of living is an order of magnitude smaller, but they’re only succeeding occasionally. (Which seems really stupid to me, there’s this region of the US which occupies a quarter of its geography where the cost of living is very low, it’s called the midwest).
Capitalism has sacrificed a lot of good paying jobs in order to make progress. Usually they’re low-tech jobs, and the advantages are blatant, but that doesn’t mean that more complex means can’t bring about progress.
You could either re-read that document and scrape out what you can from it (you don’t have to agree wholly with it to find a part which you can agree with) or you can call names because you think it’s communism.
Please do define a Marxist statement though. I’ve heard this before, but no one ever points out what specific part of Marx’s writings that the statement corresponds to. They seem to just believe that because Communism sucks and Marx was a founder of its ideology that anything Marx ever said must be wrong.
—
And BTW, Stallman thought hippies were idiots (70’s). At the time he kept his hair short and feared disagreeing with the war because he saw the “feel-goodism” in the anti-war movement.
He’s certainly non-conformist, but the trouble is, few hippies were non-conformist
.
The essence of open source is giving, not taking. Since when did we live in a socialist country where I can’t give away what I want? You know its really funny that people are so stupid that they confuse giving something away with theft.
I write software. I give it out under the GPL. If you dont like, dont use it. All I ask is that if you use my code, you use the GPL also. There is no law that says I cant sell my code under a different license also. Where the hell do you think Apache and MySQL make their money? The only rule about the cost of duplication comes when I am selling access to SOMEONE ELSE’S CODE!!! I can sell mine for what ever I want.
As for software patents: software is a written language. As such, it should always fall under copyright and not patents.
“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.”
In other words…
“If you have an apple and I have an apple, and we exchange apples, we both still only have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea, and we exchange ideas, we each now have two ideas.”
Ludwig van Beethoven said :
“There ought to be but one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works, and from which he could carry away whatever he needed. As it is, one must be half a tradesman.”
What a shame his influence cannot be used to defend our freedoms today.
:o)
“There ought to be but one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works, and from which he could carry away whatever he needed.
Its called a color photocopier/printer/camera.
And lots of thieves use it to steal photos, money, art etc.
Lets get rid of copyright too.
Edited 2006-11-01 00:22
One does not patent television broadcast standards. One does not patent telephone signalling standards.
Why? Because it is necessary for competition that a number of competing manufacturers are able to make televisions or telephone handsets that can work with the same broadcast TV signals or PABXs & telephone exchanges respectively.
One does not patent steering wheels or break pedal arrangements. Why? So many manufacturers can make cars with similar controls, so that drivers can drive any make of car.
The principle is that one should not allow any patent on a “standard” that allows several competing manufacturers to make compatible products. It is the ability to have multiple competing manufacturers making equivalent products that is the very basis of a “free market”. Without this, the whole capitalist/free market system (call it what you will) dies.
Therefore, there should be no aibility to patent things like: mp3 files, wordprocessor formats, networking protocols that allow communication between server & client. etc. One should not be allowed to patent interfaces.
If such things are “open”, then we can have multiple competing media players, multiple competing wordprocessors, multiple competing servers and multiple competing desktop clients. All competing products can still interoperate with each other.
In this scenario, there is no “lock-in”. There is no “forcing the competition out, then hike the prices”. There is no monopoly. There is in fact a true free market.
There is no objection to having a patent for “a better way of implementing a wordprocessor”. There is an objection to having a patent on “a wordprocessor”. The former still allows for competition in a market, the latter does not. The exact same argument would apply if we were to substitute “digital document storage” for “a wordprocessor” in the above line of reasoning.
Edited 2006-10-31 23:43
How about fun things like patenting the human genome, or patenting types of potatoes that have been around for years… It’s happening now, and it makes me sick.
Edited 2006-11-01 00:04
“(I doubt that the name ‘Pieter’ could be of an American)”
Why? The USA is a melting pot. My neighbor is from Mexico and his wife is from Germany. The kids speak Spanish, German and English and their names reflect their heritage.
Too many people “assume” too many things.
Too many people “assume” too many things.
I believe you’re assuming that
.
“Imitating is not stealing, especially when an entirely novel means of achieving the goal is used.
The goal of Samba was to offer a competitive product to the MS version with similar functionality”
…and…
“That’s not theft, that’s called COMPETITION… Used to be other companies that made COMPETING products”
—-
I don’t know about that. How is offering up an entirely free version of something competition? What is it the author[s] hope to achieve? If I have a business based on widgets and you don’t want to pay for a widget, so you go and create free widgets for all and put me out of business… well… in what way is that competition? That’s annihilation. Almost spiteful in a way…
I am not saying that all OSS is like that, and I certainly know of non-OSS projects that have done the same thing. I am just saying you should not dismiss the statement that it could be considered stealing simply because a bunch of people are involved and offer up the code for free to anyone. You have still copied someone else’s software, possibly damaged them or put them out of business because you give yours away for free… and what do you gain? You just don’t have to pay for the software. I am not so sure that should be called competition.
Name one real instance of OSS posing unfair competition.
Microsoft’s practices are a lot more damaging to real competition.
They last to long.
That’s not what I am saying and you know that.