Various illogical things said about software...

[Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>]

  The never ending 'debate' -- guess I'll put the latest version of my
2cents (CDN) in.

On Mon, 16 Jun 2003, Gregory Aharonian wrote:

> David Glaude asks:
> 
> >I don't like to argue with you, but what is illogic about software 
> >copyright?
> 
> Software is all useful process, method, structure, idea and applied
> mathematics.

  You have your own personal (and rather narrow) interpretation of what
software is.  Software, the written word for computers, is just like the
written word for humans.  You can express ideas that should be considered
patentable (descriptions of industrial processes), things which should be
considered under copyright (an expression of an idea), and things which
should receive no IP protection at all (I consider interfaces, like
alphabets for human communication, to be in this category).

  We can have a reasonable debate about whether that minority of software
that describes industrial processes should be patentable when the software
is separated from hardware, and whether this is of economic benefit or
economic harm to those industrial/manufacturing players.

  There is nothing remotely reasonable in the suggestion that all software
should be patentable, that no software should receive copyright
protection, or that all software should receive some form of IP protection
any more than suggesting similar things of the written word for humans
would be reasonable.

  You can express all you want that you believe that the only software
that exists is that tiny minority of software that describes an industrial
process.  For many of us that work in communications software, especially
those like myself that create software outside an industrial context,
software is authored in a communications/governance context.

  Our democracies would simply not function if the rules of the house of
commons were a patented process where some private interest received a
royalty each time parliament sat. Fundamental requirements of a free
society require that some ideas not be granted any form of private
monopoly, whether those ideas be expressed in human or machine readable
languages.

  There is simply nothing you or others can say to change that fact, no
more than you can explain-away the existence of gravity.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Governance software that controls ICT, automates government policy, or
 electronically counts votes, shouldn't be bought any more than 
 politicians should be bought.  -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/