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

[Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>]

On Mon, 5 May 2003, Gregory Aharonian wrote:

> Richard, by "harmless" I can assume you also mean "useless", as in
> offering no real exclusionary protection.

  He used the term harmless and means harmless.

  Since you appear to believe in extreme forms of protectionism of
incumbent software vendors you can use whatever terms you want if it makes
you feel better, but it isn't going to be helpful for communication.  The
same conversations happened at the beginning of the debates about Free
Trade agreements where some extremists asked "does this mean that my
exclusive and secretive agreements with my golfing buddies in the
government will become useless"?


  The whole point of this forum, from what I have seen, is to work to
render software protection "useless"  for those who seek to harm software
creators (from all sectors of our society) through creating monopolies.  

  We want to render software protection "useless" for those who seek to
harm human rights through creating methods for private interests to
regulate/censor communications.

  We want to render software protection "usless" for those who seek to
harm creators rights (software and non-software creators) by denying them
the ability to create and communicate their own works without interference
from these private monopolies/regulators/censors.

> Since you are equating such a narrowly scoped software patent with
> software copyright, can I assume you thus believe that software
> copyright for a computer program is also "harmless" and "useless" in
> offering no real exclusionary protection? And therefore that there
> should be no protection for software, patent or copyright, it should all
> be completely freely available?

  It appears as if you are deliberately trying to confuse an otherwise
simple issue, and to try to drive people into appearing to say things
which you will then try to attack them for.

  Here is my quick Q&A to express my position which I believe is quite
clear.

  Q: Should a *program* (single implementation/expression) be protected?  
  A:  Yes -- I strongly believe the benefits outweigh the costs, and
people (software creators and software users) are left with a choice
between exercising freedom, or giving up some aspect of their freedom to
someone else (a software vendor, etc) to receive some sort of tradeoff
they are comfortable with.


  Q: Should a class of comparable/interoperable programs be protected?
  A:  No.  The costs to society on governance and human rights issues
*FAR* outweigh the theoretical economic incentive benefits.  Copyright and
patents on interfaces should simply not exist, and this is an issue that
citizens in a free society should be unwilling to compromise on.
  As far as I am concerned protection of 'interfaces' is a violation of
Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human rights
<http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html>, and thus is unsupportable.


  Q: Should a class of 'similar' programs (using similar methods,
accomplishing similar goals - issues separate from interfaces) be
protected?
  A:  No.  This creates considerable legal uncertainty for software
creators that I don't see as warranted.  Software creators should be given
the freedom to create without having to worry about legal land-mines set
by incumbent vendors.  Since independent invention is not a defense for
infringement with patents, and there is no current legal way to 'opt out'
of the patent system (eithor the costs or the claimed benefits, such as
having Fair Use/dealings exceptions for approved Free Software copyright
licenses), patents become an inappropriate form of protection for
software.



  The first and second answers to me are absolutes that are not even
worthy of serious discussion.  I disagree with the people who believe that
software should receive no protection at all (I am especially protective
of moral rights for all creators), and you don't want to hear what "not so
kind words" I have for people who want interface protection.

  The last answer is something that I could be convinced with sufficient
economic analysis to prove that software is somehow not being created and
that further economic incentives are needed.  I would also want to ensure 
that an exception existed for Free Software creators.
  I am extremely skeptical here, but am willing to keep an open mind for
the sake of argument.

> Greg Aharonian
---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses, 
 VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen 
 and not a third party.   -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/