Disagreements over what should be included in the free software license's next version have pitted the movement's leaders against each other. Say the letters G, P, and L in that order around most folks and you're likely to be met with a blank stare. But try dropping them around the open-source crowd, especially in proximity to San Francisco this mid-August, and you'll get a very different response: everything from fist-pumping to hand-wringing.
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Member since:2006-01-01
In software, it is all about copyright.
Perhaps I'm just too conservative but personally I feel that if I come up with a new method of doing something I should be able to patent it. Essentially this means that I can copyright my new idea. I don't have to be a programmer to benefit from said idea. If I am not a programmer, how else can I profit from my intellectual invention (rather than physical code) in the long-run?
Certainly when this gets out of hand it can lead us to dark places, but the fundamental concept of a patent does not offend my sensibilities.
Edited 2006-08-21 12:31
Member since:2005-11-11
//Certainly when this gets out of hand it can lead us to dark places, but the fundamental concept of a patent does not offend my sensibilities. //
You are supposed to publish what your idea is in the patent. If you do that, then the law grants you a period (twenty years I think it is) where you have exclusive rights to the idea ... rights you may license for a fee to other parties.
In software, there seems to be in America this idea that you can have a software patent but you are somehow not obliged to reveal how it works (the code, in the case of a software patent). That is wrong.
You are supposed to reveal the patent. Then you get the benefit for twenty years, and then everyone gets to use it after that. If software patents were worked this way in America, then it might be half-way reasonable (although the standard twenty years is a very very long time indeed in the software industry). But it is not like this. There seems to be the practice that it is not necessary for the patent to reveal how the idea works. That is the evil bit.
Edited 2006-08-21 13:23
Member since:2006-01-16
The patent system is not for people having great ideas to get money out of them. It is to open up inventions to the public, by granting the inventors license fees for some years for doing so.
The problem is, that the patent system is not practical for software in almost every case. This is just practical experience and it means that most patents only lead to people having to pay for things they have invented themselves (or that just can't be done in a reasonable other way) - but someone else came first and patented it - or things that are trivial (the progress bar is patented!). It is kind of perverted, because most times only the patentholders really profit from it. The time a patent is protected is also way too long, software just evolves too fast.
A little example: The FAT filesystem is one of the worst known ones. Everyone who is into file systems knows that. But it is one Microsoft Windows understands. So USB sticks etc. use the FAT filesystem, so that Windows is able to mount them without additional software. Now Microsoft got a patent on his FAT filesystem and USB gadget manufacturers have to pay license fees to MS for the filesystem. A filesystem really everybody could have thought of himself! People don't pay patent fees because they can profit from a great invention..
Member since:2005-06-29
That's the trouble, you're right. And Stallman, and everyone else, I think, realizes it. Software patents are redundant.
We come back to that clause that enables patents, copyrights, and the rest of the family in the Constitution: Securing ownership for limited times to the benefit of science and the arts (rephrased). So, why would you ever have two methods of that?
It seems to me that software patents are really system design patents. Whether that were implemented in software or hand-hacked in gates in hardware would be irrelevant to a large number of patents (such as Microsoft's button holding patent).
But if you go back to the origins of the FSF I think you'll find patents aren't all they hate: They didn't like copyright when it first applied to software either.
I still think software patents are a bad idea. The term it would take to implement your idea is long enough to become the market leader and remake your investment, and patent terms are going to approach eternity in the software world. Copyright is already longer than eternity (2038-1970 < 2018-1923).
But I don't think opposing patents with the GPL is the way to do it. Even if it works, it seems like the wrong channel. But maybe it's necessary as a defensive move?
Member since:2006-01-06
That's not true when it comes to software. In software, it is all about copyright. Patenting only harms the software market.
When was the last time you were sued for writing a piece of software? Seriously. Ergo, you're exaggerating wildly the "harm" done to the software market.
Member since:2006-01-16
Member since:
2006-01-16
"but patents in particular are a foundation stone of modern business"
That's not true when it comes to software. In software, it is all about copyright. Patenting only harms the software market.