Re: [Patents] newsscan: Software patent limits 'go too far'

[Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron@free.fr>]

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 02:02:17 +0200
Simo Sorce <simo.sorce@xsec.it> wrote:

> You are perfectly right, let computer-scientist tell lawyers what they
> need, and let lawyers correctly codify into the law computer-scientist
> needs.
> 
> But, do not let lawyers codify laws for computer-scients based on
> non-computer-scients interests (except for general public interest).

Ideally, law should not be made for any specific interest but for the
interest of the public in general. As there is nothing called "the
public in general" in real life, law is always made in favor of
organised interests. If computer scientists don't try to defend their
interest in front of lawmakers (judges, politics, activists...), there
is no suprise that their interests are greatly underestimated. 

That's why it's really refreshing to see people raising today to fight
software patents. But they should also remember that they stood silent
for years and not put the blame on lawmakers whose job is not to guess
what's right and wrong put to translate interests in words compatible
with the existing legal system. As far as I remember, the GPL was
created in 1984 and the importance of open source and free software only
begun to spread around 1995. We are only 8 years later.