Free?

[Chante]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:09:52 -0400, Chante <udontspamme at never.will.u>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:op.v3zaemhyeav7ka at localhost.localdomain...
>>> On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:28:21 -0400, Kagamin <spam at here.lot> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Steven Schveighoffer Wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> patents exist to give an *incentive* to give away trade secrets
>>>>> that would
>>>>> otherwise die with the inventor.  The idea is, if you patent
>>>>> something,
>>>>> you enjoy a period of monopoly, where you can profit from the
>>>>> fruits of
>>>>> your invention.
>>>>
>>>> I think, this can work for software the same way.
>>>
>>> You can profit from the fruits of your invention *without* patents.
>>> You  can with machines as well, but software has the added bonus
>>> that copyright  protects your IP.
>>
>> It does not? The engineered concepts are not protected by copyright,
>> AFAIK, and THAT is what the IP is. THAT is what took all those years
>> of R&D. So with copyright, someon can paraphrase the source code and
>> then the inventor is SOL?
>
> You think the "one click" design took years of R&D, and not the
> building of the amazon site?

What is your point?

>
> Again, "paraphrasing" is not so easy with software.

I was once again suggesting that copyright is not strong enough 
protection to protect the IP (the mechanisms within and represented by 
the source code or implied by the shrink-wrapped product).

> Whether you are
> good or not, it takes a long time to write good software.

Don't I know it|

> You really
> think patents are the reason people don't copy large software
> projects?

I don't know why other people don't copy. I just know why I don't (I have 
plenty of my own ideas to work on and that moves things forward rather 
than stagnating progress).

>
> Think about DVD "encryption" that was used to protect DVDs from
> copying. Although it was a poor encryption and once cracked, was
> ridiculed for its simplicity and ease of circumvention, it still was
> very successful in preventing people from copying DVDs.  It was a
> long time before someone actually cracked it.  Is that because of
> patents?

No one was suggesting that patents will prevent reproduction of the 
patented thing. It acts as a deterent and enables remedy.

> No, it was because the encryption was a trade secret, only
> handed out to those who could pay a hefty sum and promised not to use
> it to make copies or divulge it to any third party.

See, trade secret works.

>
> Software is HARD to reverse engineer (even though it's definitely
> possible), and its HARD to replicate without direct copying.  One has
> to go from binary code all the way back to the design/spec, and then
> go forward to a completely rewritten, tested, and well developed
> product.  We are talking a huge investment of time and effort, all
> the time while the original author has since improved their product.

I still don't know why anyone bothers doing this. I have no worries about 
that kind of thing (well, not very much and certainly "orders of 
magnitude" less relatively). I worry about releasing novel software with 
the obvious innovations unprotected. Released unprotected, effectively 
puts me out of business the moment Billion Dollar Bitch Software catches 
the drift and sucks up the market. Stops my innovation in its tracks. 
What other than patent can help with this?

>
> Your statements appear to employ hand-waving to describe the tedious
> process of making a legal re-implementation of software.

I don't know what you mean. As I said above, I'm not worred about that. 
How you got that idea from my dialog is puzzling.

>  Yes,
> copyright protects your investment and your effort, more so than
> patents.

I still don't see that.

> Trade secrets actually are better than patents to protect
> you because you aren't forced to divulge it to the world.

I've said that a number of times. Of course it is easy to do such 
divulging (getting a patent) if one is seeking patent for something that 
is clearly able to be, and likely to be, "invented" idependently. And 
this area, I suggested, is where some focus of the work of "fixing the 
patent system" should go. Those kind of patents are the ones that should 
be on the chopping block.