Fabrizio, asking for reform might be a good idea, but reform to _WHAT_? I haven't seen any proposal that makes a decent case that implementing it would lead to a patent law system we can all be reasonably happy with (i.e. happier than foregoing software patents altogether).
You're dangerously close to arguing from the principle of perfect laws, i.e. that perfect laws must exist, and that therefore we should always change things unless the a certain law is perfect. This is not a good way to get to good laws, because in practice laws are never perfect. All that leads to is complex monsters where its no longer obviously flawed, though it'll likely lead to far worse excesses than a much simpler law that is flawed in obvious ways. In other words, there are some easily pointed out problems with a no software patents world, but I'm arguing that any attempt at software patents is going to be worse than no software patents at all. Until someone shows me a patent system that is implementable and appears to be better than no software patents at all, I'm going to stick with "I'd rather have none at all, because government is never, ever, going to get them sufficiently right for the end result to be better". On Sep 5, 10:44 am, Fabrizio Giudici <fabrizio.giud...@tidalwave.it> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > As you know, I'm mid way here. I think that the current patent system > is ridiculous, but patents are needed, as said Cedric. So, we need > just to bring them to a reasonable point: a) don't patent obvious > stuff and b) set a shorter time before they expire. In my opinion, > it's a matter of equilibrium: the innovation corporate must have some > time to gets most of the revenues from the idea that needed big money. > I don't see a qualitative difference between software and other > thigns; I see a quantitative difference, in that the software world > evolves quicker, and thus it needs shorter expiration times. > > That's why while I strive for a reform, I believe that the mass > movement about totally preventing software patents from occurring is > bad too. > > For what concerns fashion... well, it's fashion. It's useless stuff, > where only marketing matters. Often, the only difference between an > original product and the chinese copy is that the latter misses the > badge, but more and more often the materials used to create the > "original" product are nevertheless made in China (of course, there > are also poor quality copies). A fashion product is supposedly made of > two things: it's aesthetically appealing and it should be made with > quality materials. For the former thing, everybody should just > evaluate with his/her personal taste, not leaving morons writing for > newspaper in Milan, Paris or New York to decide what's beautiful and > what's not. For the latter thing, not necessarily a branded product is > better than another. I really hope that our technology products are > very different (*)! So I wouldn't call a comparison with the fashion > industry. > > (*) Note that similar arguments could be done e.g. for the Oracle DB > and Postgres, but in our business there's the integration and > consultancy thing, that doesn't matter for fashion. > > - -- > Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager > Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere." > java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici -www.tidalwave.it/people > fabrizio.giud...@tidalwave.it > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.14 (Darwin) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla -http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ > > iEYEARECAAYFAkyDWHoACgkQeDweFqgUGxdR6QCfWNdwRo5SaOEaE4gupeYqliwC > TNQAn3orSergqumJwFbPqNZPHxT7DBAA > =uSnb > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javapo...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
