> Serious Question: Do you think that all software should have to be completely and constantly open-sourced? Do you think that all blueprints must be made publi

> Serious Question: Do you think that all software should have to be completely and constantly open-sourced? Do you think that all blueprints must be made public? Do you think that all recipes for food must be made public? No, we have copyright and trade secrets to protect those things. There are many forms of IP protection, but patents are the most questionable by far IMO, and are more likely (in most fields) to be a net loss rather than a net gain for humanity. > Creation is hard and should have some potential for rewards. I think we need software patents (especially) to be shorter lived and non-transferable. They can only be licensed and the licensing schedule should have to be public and available for all people at the same price. The employer can get a free license as part of the patent process for company use. This gets rid of trolls and patent farms. Copyright protection is sufficient for software IMO. Very few pieces of software are novel enough to be worthy of a patent, and in the few cases that are, the greater number that aren't outweigh the benefit to the few. When you have to try this hard to salvage the system, it is usually best to not try and salvage it.