[Patents] beliefs, patents, copyrights (was: burce (sic) perens)

[rubini@gnu.org (Alessandro Rubini)]

To Greg:
>>It is you who is regularly giving the impression of being against all
>>patents.

Greg:
> No it is you and the others who continually claim that about my beliefs.
> It is a nice lie tactic, but still a lie.
> [...]
> Stop please stop spreading these lies about my position.

It may be a lie, but it's what appears from reading some of your
posts.  You tend to concede that most sw patents are bad, and then you
state that sw is just like other fields. When I joined this list I've
been thinking you were against all patents, for a while.

But Your major stance is "if you are against swpat, you must be against
all patents; being against all patents is stupid, so you can't be against
sw patents.". It is now clear, but it takes a while for new subscribers
to understand it.

-------------

Switching topic, so-called "intellectual property" is made of
copyright and patents [1] . Some products are covered by one of them,
and some by the other. They are different tools, meant to protect
different kinds of products.

Can you (Greg) please explain to up why should software be protected
by both of them? No other field of intellectual production is covered
by both systems, and it makes no sense to.  There's no sense in
copyright for hardware, and no sense in patents for music.

Then, how is software best protected? If you say patents, then you
should revoke copyright on software. I think no sw producer will
accept that. Protecting a product with both systems makes no sense at
all, it's just abuse.


[1] one may also list trademarks, but they are a different kind of
stuff, not relevant here.


/alessandro
-- 
Quello che scrivo rappresenta solo il mio personale punto di vista,
non rispecchia l'opinione di organizzazioni di cui faccio o ho fatto parte.