Re: [Patents] Various illogical things said about software...

[Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>]

On Sat, 21 Jun 2003, Gregory Aharonian wrote:

> There are way too many modal equivalences between hardware and software,
> especially in the context of hardware/software codesign tools, for their
> patentabilities not to be equivalent as well.

  At some point in the future a large number of private citizens may have
all the equipment and knowledge required to create new hardware designs in
the privacy of their own homes.  At that point I will be start arguing
against this type of hardware being patentable.

  You are not giving us arguments to justify your belief that all types of
software should be patentable, you are just giving us economic and other
argument why less hardware should be patentable.

> Software is just another technology with an industry making products.  
> Technology - industry - products --> patents.

  This is where there is an impossibility that we can agree.  Just because
an industry produces/creates a subset of a class of products/services
through traditional manufacturing techniques does not mean that the only
way you can gain that same product/service is through industrial
manufacturing.  Patents not only assume economic justifications that
realistically apply only in a manufacturing setting, this incentive model
tries to force "one size fits all" type of a mentality which excludes
alternative models.

  Given I create software within one of these alternative models, I reject
your extremist imposition of your business/incentive model onto me.

  Software manufacturing is a subset of the software industry.  We can
argue for years about the percentages, but it is simply not the entire
sector.  The trends I see in Free/Libre and Open Source Software (as the
model I create within, but by no means the only alternative model) suggest
that software manufacturing as a way of looking at distributed software is
decreasing, not increasing.  Even if FLOSS was a tiny percentage of the 
sector (and it is in reality quite large), that does not excuse you 
imposing your business/incentive model onto me and essentially seeking to 
put me out of business.

  When a type of 'invention' ceases to be created in an
industrial/manufacturing setting (with all the up-front costs associated
with that model), then it should cease to be patentable.  This is not how 
our laws are written today, but I believe many of us can agree that the 
current laws are greatly out of touch with modern realities.

> Greg Aharonian
---
 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/