Re: [fsl-discuss] Re: [Patents] The politics of software over-protection -- moving forward..

[Xavi Drudis Ferran <xdrudis@tinet.org>]

El Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 06:53:33PM -0400, Russell McOrmond deia:
> 
> On 26 Apr 2003, Roland Orre wrote:
> 
> > Of course this view has consequences: it implies that it would be
> > perfectly all right for M$ to steal the [ref Ballmer] "viral" GPL
> > programs and reimplement them in C# for instance. This feels wrong,
> > but it's less bad than having the "idea" of a GPL program
> > copyrighted or patented.
> 

Roland, I don't feel wrong at all at M$ reimplementing any GPLd
program from scratch and having copyright on it. It's their hours,
their job, and their program.  If we could never look at other people
programs to write our own, we'd be much more unliterate that we
are. Of course typical copyright licenses from M$ are absurd and I
won't agree to them. But that does not mean they can't try to program
that and then void the worth of their work by imposing a silly
copyright license on it.

[snipping very reasonable text by McOrmond]


>   An important question for policy makers and economists (as this is a
> public policy and economic issue, not a legal one) then becomes:  is all
> software created equally?
> 
>   ICT governance software is quite different than game software which is
> quite different than software used to control a manufacturing process.  
> Is the class of software that Gregory is concerned about and suggests
> needs more than copyright protection an entirely different class of
> software than I believe must not have it (ICT)?
>

Yes I think software is information and all information is created equal. 
You cannot base freedom of expression on what kind of expression are you 
free to express.
 
In early McCarthy papers, and some political discussions I've heard
people say that optimizing memory, speed or security is "technical"
(ergo patentable) and games are not. I wonder how anyone could ever
think this is a workable separation: most games make as much use as
they can of speed optimization, optimize memory (using compressed
video, graphics or music) etc. And on the other hand, take the most
"technical" software and you'll find people able to hack at it as a
game. 

Guess what is the name of the discipline studying possible
voting systems, decision making organization and the like?. If I'm not
mistaken that's "game theory". So it seems hard to distinguish "ICT
governance software" from games.

What information is depends on the user, and all kinds of information
are equal in nature. You can't draw a clear line. You can draw a clear
enough line between inmaterial creations and material ones. You can use
the fundamental disctinction between real world / information about
the world to work out limits, not artificial distinctions inside one
of these camps.


Note: I'm removing some list-looking addresses because I'm not a member, 
and I'm a bit tired of failure messages. Feel free to resend it there 
if it's any relevant. It would indeed be nice if we
could solve this crossposting.

-- 
Xavi Drudis Ferran
xdrudis@tinet.org