Re: [Patents] Anyone done the research: SCO, IBM and software patents.

[Jean-Michel POURE <jm@poure.com>]

Le Vendredi 24 Octobre 2003 10:51, roberto@dicosmo.org a écrit :
> While we continue our fight to abolish software patents, it is
> nevertheless reassuring, even if, maybe, a bit odd, to have one of
> the big guys covering free software with the very legal tool we are
> trying to have removed.

No, for a simple question of law:

Laws do not only exist because they are written but because people respect 
them. Somehow, a written law needs a social consensus to apply.

Whenever you enter the game of companies selling land on the moon, you 
somehow 
agree on the principles of selling land on the moon. Whenever you agree on 
IBMs patents on software, somehow you legalize them and create a "fake" 
social consensus.

Soon, the danger is that actors, like Mr Coward Old Timer, will raise your 
written ideas and convert them into weapons agains your original thoughts.

If you think "law", think "society", do not only take into account 
"companies". Commercial Law is only a small part of Civil Law. Not the 
converse.

As I am only an amateur in law, Jurists registering on the list may explain 
it 
more deeply. 

Furthermore, as a question of principles, I do not believe in "fictive laws", 
because law is a living body which shall only deal with existing issues, not 
fictive ones. Laws can be "abstract" but not "fictive".

Because the amended laws proposed by the parliament come from an elected 
body, 
they have more chances to result in a social consensus and thus will be 
applied and respected.

We do not need any other protection than Copyright, the Constitution and our 
Civil Rights. We do not need a licence to breathe air, walk freely in the 
streets, listen to music, compose poems or write software.

In a way, we are all Berliners.

Best regards,
Jean-Michel