Re: [Patents] pooling patents for progress and protection

[Alexandre Dulaunoy <alexandre.dulaunoy@ael.be>]

On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Peter Vandenabeele wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 01, 2003 at 12:04:25PM +0100, Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
> > El Mon, Dec 30, 2002 at 11:10:24AM +0100, Alexandre Dulaunoy deia:
> > > I will support  the idea only if the current  fighting is lost against
> > > software patents. ;-) 
> > >
> > 
> > Me too. 
> 
> Dear Xavi, Alexandre,

[..] 

<disclaimer>
I think discussion is an important part for finding solutions. 
</disclaimer>

I don't  know the correct way  (nobody knows ?)  for fighting software
patents.  The  important  thing  (IMHO)  is that  Software  Patent  is
fundamentaly bad. Regarding the focusing, it's not so easy to find the
correct focusing.  (as time is  too short for every subscriber of this
list)

But some way has to be more focused : 

1. The way for showing that patents are bad for Software. (it's really
   important and the vast majority  of us is working in that direction
   with different method and approach (from economical to ethical))

2. Anteriority and  securing the  current open publication  scheme for
   Computer Science. This is important for the current countries (like
   US and Japan) with software patents. 

   Securing (for example) :
   http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs
   http://xxx.lanl.gov/ ;

   By securing, I  mean extend the usage of these  type of archive and
   securing the current owner of  the existing archive for avoiding of
   being swallowed by some big company (like Elsevier & alike). 

   Anteriority   is   the  current   best   weapon  against   software
   patents in US/Japan. (Did you  remember the first issue for Mozilla
   about a patent for client/server application ?) 

   
But some  other way  has to be  explored (if  time left ;-),  like the
proposal of  Rik and some other. For  the moment, I'm focusing  on 1 &
2. Yes,  we have to  look at  every solution  (even the  most strange)
possible to protect the Freedom of writing software. 

Just my .2 EUR. 

adulau

-- 
--                            Alexandre Dulaunoy -- http://www.foo.be/
--         http://pgp.ael.be:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x44E6CBCD
"People who fight may lose.People who do not fight have already lost." 
                                                        Bertolt Brecht