On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Adam Bolte <abolte@systemsaviour.com>wrote:
We cannot allow these hobbyists to rip off our ideas and then compete with us at zero cost. That will mean we have no incentive to invest money in further research."
From the ABC website: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s1097642.htm
"The cost of an Australian standard patent including attorney fees is usually between $5000-$8000. Annual maintenance fees are payable from its fifth year. Over a 20-year term these will add a further $8,000 to the cost."
So if a company can afford to buy patents, they can likely also afford more developers. Would they argue that a few developers (potentially non-free, working in their spare time as a hobby) is serious competition for them?
(Off topic: you really think this argument is a strong one? $16000 over 20 years will buy how many developers?)
Any argument against the patent system can be applied equally to free or proprietary software.
That's what I've been trying to show my disagreement over. I don't think we can convince each other easily. :)
I'm with Matt on this one, sorry Adam. Let's see if I can contribute with something relevant.
It doesn't make sense in my mind to say "patents should not apply to free software," any more than it would make sense to say "parking meters should not apply to cars that have been custom built by the driver." Either you think parking meters are a good thing and should apply to anyone who parks in a spot, or you think parking meters are bad and everyone should be able to park for free. It has nothing to do with the conditions under which the car was built.
Still not looking at the big picture. Parking meters don't apply to bicycles. Why not? Bicycles are vehicles too. But they don't have a huge up-front expense and are easily obtainable by all - including kids. Because the barrier to entry is so low, and the value they provide (being safer, and the only common vehicle allowed on the road that's available to non-adults), it doesn't make sense to put parking meters at bike stands.
Well, to slide on into the "car analogy": if you park the bicycle in a car parking spot so that no car will be able to use it, I bet you will find a parking ticket (if you find your bicycle at all). Translation: I reckon that it is NOT the fact that the Free Software have a "small parking footprint/easily affordable/green" the reason that should protect the free software against patents.
If I make a computer program and release it as free software, it doesn't make sense for the patent system to apply to me because I can't afford time/money to start a company and patent things. That too would be crazy.
Unfortunately, capitalism does not grant you something if you just can't afford it. Other types of economies (first one with a positive connotation that spring into my mind: gift economy<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy#Open-source_software>) may do it, but patents are a creation of the capitalistic culture (and I argue we are still living in one).
If making an analogy to software patents, I'd say you have a parking meter at every public bike rack, and we're the ones arguing that this isn't fair - some people can't afford to use them. Then you have car owners saying "hell no, we're paying taxes and we're all driving vehicles here - they need that meter". :)
You reckon? I, as a driver (by necessity), would be very pleased to hear that no parking meters are used for both bicycles and cars. Am I that atypical for a human being?
b) I doubt you will find it any easier to convince lawmakers to get rid of patents in free software as you will to convince them to get rid of patents entirely.
Still haven't seen any clear arguments demonstrating this IMO. However, it also hasn't been demonstrated that it should matter - and that we can't argue both points at the same time.
Clear arguments, you say? At my age, I have too small a confidence of the average capability of humans (including myself) to argue clearly. Looking on our honorable politicians we have today (sometimes I do watch the "Question time" in the Parliament), I would rate their capability to a "below average". Letting aside my personal impression, what I want to point out is that* it is not a necessity the arguments to be clear to become a law (or to repeal one)* Let me try to give you some examples: http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/open_source-is_communism.png http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/31/ms_ballmer_linux_is_communism/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/
Yes, there are lots of harms to free software authors by having software patents. But they are just as harmful to proprietary software authors.
If that were true, you would see free software authors licensing patents. Funny that doesn't typically happen. :)
How does it follow? The fact that open source authors choose not to lodge/license patents may have multiple reasons. Yes, affordability may be *one* of them (it usually is), but believe me, *I*can afford to pay $8000 for a patent application now (for a hypothetical protection, a patent grant should be better than a simple license), I just choose not to.
A startup who wants to build a photo-sharing platform (and doesn't necessarily want to make the source public, because they want a competitive advantage) may be sued by a troll who has a patent on photo sharing, and go out of business. The net result is we don't have any photo sharing (since the troll isn't actually providing a service, just suing). That's bad for innovation, and bad for the industry. Those cases are just as important as free software cases, in my view.
You're still forgetting my argument that free software should be in the public interest. It's difficult, or perhaps impossible to make the same claims about proprietary software. So it's not just as important, but I agree it's still quite important.
I'll pick the gauntlet if you don't mind. - do you ever buy a virus/malware to run on your computer? Isn't the malware a free software? - are you saying that the Antivirus applications that you pay for are against public interest?
Of course, this is a free software discussion group, so perhaps the argument to that is "why should we care about someone who isn't releasing their source code?" "Why don't we just look after our own people?" Fair enough, but I'm saying that if you want to fight against X, the best thing you can do is gather up as many people who will be threatened by X and all fight together, even if you disagree with those people about other things.
I would normally agree, but in this case by arguing alongside with proprietary software, we expand the scope of what we're fighting for and take on additional problems associated with representing it. I'm certainly not saying that we should give up on software patents in general, however I continue to believe that putting forward an argument specifically for free software to be considered 'in the public interest' would be easier than abolishing software patents entirely forever.
I'm glad that you use a personal/subjective point of view to express the
position (like "I continue to believe"). On the same tone, I believe: a. "repealing software patents" is a smaller target than "granting open-source software an exempt from patents" - if only because it is simpler to understand by the law-makers. b. "fighting" along the proprietary software against this target has the huge advantage of a larger participation (and better - for the purpose - arms being used in the battle). Unfortunately, in this "fight", it is not the open-source community that sustain the most of this effort (and I say it is unfortunate because I see that in the world nowadays, money talk louder than rationality).
Nobody would ever win a battle against X if all of the various interest groups who oppose X all decided to start their own little campaign to protect their interest group from X and did not care about any of the other interest groups. United we stand, yada yada yada.
Free software supporters can argue for both. I can't see why not.
Have a long and winding message and you have *lesser* chances to be heard or considered, no matter how coherent is your discourse (please recall the time we were working together: comprehensive and long presentations/argumentation is my "specialty", I'm speaking from direct experience).
To show how silly and divisive that logic is, say that there is a web app community, and they get fed up with getting sued all the time for violating every little one click or embeddable object patent. So they team up to fight software patents. And we, in the free software community, say "yes! We need to get rid of software patents!" But then, these web app authors go to the government and say:
"We need to put an end to patent trolls suing us for web content. So we propose a law which says that patents cannot be used against web technologies. After all, the web is a source of rich innovation and it is being harmed by patents."
That actually might fall under free software banner, since the code is sent to the client web browser in human-readable form (or easily made to do so anyway).
Anyway I see your point, but I disagree any example you could care to name could truly be considered 'in the public interest' like free software could.
Now, Adam, I do agree with you that: - would the software patents be gradually relaxed, the Open source community should the first to consider for exemption. What I'm with Matt is in *what/how* *you need to do *to* *make Open source community being exempted - the easiest way in my mind is to band together with the "closed source" part of the software world on this one. Adrian