3 ms·

This is very similar to the dilema of drug manufacturers and generics to me. On one hand without a strong financial incentive you won't have big companies inves

This is very similar to the dilema of drug manufacturers and generics to me. On one hand without a strong financial incentive you won't have big companies investing in the original pieces of software. On the other hand at a certain point it becomes a monopoly with a negative societal impact.

philipkglass 9y ago
Drug manufacturers get patents and a corresponding period of exclusivity. This is worse than patents in some ways because there's no time limit. It's like drug manufacturers could attach a EULA to their pills that makes reverse-engineering a competing product a legally enforceable contract violation even after the relevant patents expire.
- tossaway1 9y ago
  Copyright does have a time limit. In the US, I believe the work just had to be older than Steamboat Willie.
- uxp 9y ago
  I don't buy this. "It's like drug manufacturers could attach a EULA to their pills that makes reverse-engineering a competing product a legally enforceable contract violation _even after_ the relevant patents expire." You've gone from "Drug manufacturers get patents and a period of exclusivity" to "Patent and exclusivity, and also protection from generics for the brand's life", but patents can be applied for at any time during a drugs development, including before it's ever been synthesized (e.g., theoretical manufacture via computer models) but the exclusivity is only a U.S. FDA marketing feature. Patents on a drug could expire before the exclusivity, so a competing manufacturer could create a secondary brandname drug and sell it overseas during that period. I'm really confused as to where this EULA would even fit in, since you've just moved the goalposts with your "even after" clause. If the FDA had some kind of deterministic human trial of a drug, like some dystopian lab-grown identical human clones, of which drugs were trialled on and some company B was able to obtain a set of these clones from company A that had some kind of defect of which the drug was targeting as a cure or remedy for, and then used those proprietary clone models in order to test their clone drug against, we might have some kind of metaphor worth arguing against, but we don't.
chc 9y ago
It seems really weird to suggest that no big companies would make software if they knew that competing software could be developed. Regulations on drugs require extensive and time-consuming trials, and that's the strongest argument for drug patents. There isn't anything remotely similar in software, and that kind of incentive is definitely not needed.

philipkglass 9y ago

Drug manufacturers get patents and a corresponding period of exclusivity. This is worse than patents in some ways because there's no time limit. It's like drug manufacturers could attach a EULA to their pills that makes reverse-engineering a competing product a legally enforceable contract violation even after the relevant patents expire.

tossaway1 9y ago
Copyright does have a time limit. In the US, I believe the work just had to be older than Steamboat Willie.
uxp 9y ago
I don't buy this. "It's like drug manufacturers could attach a EULA to their pills that makes reverse-engineering a competing product a legally enforceable contract violation _even after_ the relevant patents expire." You've gone from "Drug manufacturers get patents and a period of exclusivity" to "Patent and exclusivity, and also protection from generics for the brand's life", but patents can be applied for at any time during a drugs development, including before it's ever been synthesized (e.g., theoretical manufacture via computer models) but the exclusivity is only a U.S. FDA marketing feature. Patents on a drug could expire before the exclusivity, so a competing manufacturer could create a secondary brandname drug and sell it overseas during that period. I'm really confused as to where this EULA would even fit in, since you've just moved the goalposts with your "even after" clause. If the FDA had some kind of deterministic human trial of a drug, like some dystopian lab-grown identical human clones, of which drugs were trialled on and some company B was able to obtain a set of these clones from company A that had some kind of defect of which the drug was targeting as a cure or remedy for, and then used those proprietary clone models in order to test their clone drug against, we might have some kind of metaphor worth arguing against, but we don't.

chc 9y ago

It seems really weird to suggest that no big companies would make software if they knew that competing software could be developed. Regulations on drugs require extensive and time-consuming trials, and that's the strongest argument for drug patents. There isn't anything remotely similar in software, and that kind of incentive is definitely not needed.