"Steven Schveighoffer" <schvei...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:op.v3yn2di8eav7ka@localhost.localdomain...
>>> 3. It is a very slippery slope to go down. Software is a purely >>> *abstract* thing, it's not a machine. >> >> Software is a machine: concrete thing doing concrete job. Patent >> doesn't protect the machine itself, it protects concrete design work >> put into it. Design is a high-profile work, a good design has a good >> chance to be more expensive than the actual implementation. So it's >> perfectly valid to claim ownership for a design work and charge fees >> for it. > > And why wouldn't you be able to do this without patents? One can: trade secrets. But a lot of times, techniques cannot be hidden away, for just releasing a product may divulge the "secret", so something more is needed: patent. > Again, copyright already covers software. While it's probably not enough or even the correct thing in the first place, is "software" copyrightable or source code, or both separately? It seems that copyright has appropriateness for software, but is useless as protection of the software designs as represented by source code. > Plenty of software companies have large amounts of IP and are > successful without having any software patents. Are you suggesting that there MUST be only ONE ("one and only") way? Great then, let's make it so there is only ONE software too. Problem solved, eh? > >> >>> It can be produced en mass with near-zero cost. >> >> Dead software is seen as unusable. So - no, to produce software you >> need continuous maintenance and development which is as expensive as >> any other labor. > > What I mean is, with a traditional machine, there is a cost to > recreating the machine. Such manufacturing requires up-front > investment that can possibly outweigh the cost of implementing the > design. Patents protect the entity putting their product out there > from having a larger company who can throw money around beat you using > your idea. In software, since the software is protected by copyright, > the competition must build their own version of your software ideas > first, and the distribution is relatively insignificant. In other > words, once you release your idea to the world, it can be sold and > installed for millions in a matter of days, giving you the lion share > of the market. Seems like incentive to get into Engineering, huh. Those who want to "win big" and expend no effort should stick to buying lottery tickets (and stop preying upon others). Keeping things away from the sleazy, grimey fingers of those who want to profit from someone else's labor or get something for nothing, is a good thing. >>> 4. Unlike a physical entity, it is very likely a simple individual, >>> working on his own time with his own ideas, can create software that >>> inadvertently violates a "patent" with low cost. >> >> I don't see how this doesn't apply to physical machines. > > When you are talking about patents for a machine or physical entity, > there is a large investment and cost in just designing the item, How many man years are in the average commercially offered software product? > or the means to manufacture it. It's less likely that a simple > individual has the capital necessary to create it, and if he does, or > can raise it, a patent search is usually done to avoid complications. > He might also look at expired patents to get ideas on how to do > things. > > However, working software can be written by one guy in his apartment in > a couple weeks. "The quick hack" is hardly "mainstream commercial software product"? Why bring up special cases? Why imply that a special case represents the whole realm? > He's not going to do patent searches when it costs him just 2 weeks > time to create the software. Assumption may be made that because a patent pre-exists, that someone else cannot independently create the same thing, which of course is possible and likely. Ideally, all patents would be kept a secret so that those independently developed creations could have a life also, instead of just those of "the chosen ones". Not allowing software patents would seem to "level the playing field" for all and cut out useless administration tasks. Hmm, no it wouldn't: big money would feed off of the inventions of the little guy. That's where the consumer fits in though: don't buy from the undeserving, and identify them as the predators they are. That may be the key: render power/money-as-power, useless as a strategy. Something to think about next time you buy from someone who has more than you, huh. Occupy Wallstreet? Why not just stop buying from Wallstreet and instead buy from someone in your neighborhood or on your Facebook/Linked-In friends list? > Here, the patent system is just getting in the way of innovation. The patent system is justified in the name of "incentive", but are patents in reality, a crime against humanity? Patents should, perhaps, be to protect only what cannot be kept a secret. "Incentive" shouldn't even be part of the equation. "Incentive" is "prodding" at best, "imposition" at worst (where the "crime against humanity reference above came from). > It's having the opposite effect by instilling fear in anyone writing > software that some patent-holding company is going to squash him out > of business. It does do that, yes. > > When was the last time you did anything with a patented software > technology except *avoid it like the plague*? Never looked at any, but how many do I know of inadvertently because they weren't kept a secret? Where are all the warning signs on information describing patented things? They should have warnings just like cigarettes (yet another cigarette analogy... Cigarettes and information about patented things: things that may be hazardous or dangerous). > >> How to improve patent system is another question. Can't be fixed and the only solution is to eliminate it? > GPL3 can actually play >> some role here: there's no mercantile reason to restrict use of a >> patented technology in a GPL3 software. > > IMO, there's no reason to ever use any form of GPL anymore. It's work > is done. So now it's supposed to be credited with something and people should bow to it? What is that something? That communism doesn't work in practice?