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Suppose we even abolished all patents. Would it even make a difference in the software world? The selfish already got their new tool - online services. Not only
by b0rsuk 8y ago
Suppose we even abolished all patents. Would it even make a difference in the software world? The selfish already got their new tool - online services. Not only you never have to release any source code, the user doesn't even run the compiled version himself. All he gets is output. The code running his computations may or may not be patented, he'll never know. I don't think licences like Aferro GPL can realistically be enforced.
- jokoon 8y agoI think patents are relevant when you do chemistry or biology research. If you burn money for years designing a molecule, you could say you "own" the molecule, so you patent it. The problem with the patent system is that it's necessary in a world where you need money to do any simple thing, because states cannot fund every research project, since it's impossible to know the outcome of every research. But obviously you cannot patent everything, and that's where the patent system is failing. There is no good legal definition of a worthwhile invention. Software is not patent-able because it never really is an invention that requires to burn a lot of money, unlike other domains of research. Anybody can write any kind of software. But patents are still relevant where research requires expensive resources.
- dmos62 8y agoThe original idea with patents was that they should make it worthwhile to invest in innovation and otherwise expire as fast as possible so that eventually all profit. Our current patent system has forgotten that second part and morphed to "expire as late as possible", which only serves greed.