Free?

[Chante]

"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:op.v3yn2di8eav7ka at 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?