7 ms·

Of course, history has shown that Stallman was correct about the insidious effect of software patents.

by ddoubleday 17y ago

Create 17y ago
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html
wmf 17y ago
Now that RMS has won that one, he's moved on to warn us of the insidious evils of... JavaScript.
- jrockway 17y ago
  Wrong. He's warning you about relying on applications that you can't modify. Just because the app runs in a browser doesn't mean that it is magically immune from bugs. If it's free software, the community can fix the bugs. If it's not, everyone is at the mercy of one company. It's the same argument as always, just with a spin that you may not have thought of before.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    The key is that power over information can be taken away from the community at large. That this is done in the accepted legal and commercial framework is a little beside the point. First, there was no rule of law, and the citizen had no protection but to supplicate to the most powerful. Then, there was the rule of law, but the laws were written by someone else. Then, there came democracy, and citizens had some sort of indirect input to ruling themselves. Afterward, commercial interests found that they could exercise power over others using the framework of markets, and monopolys and other abuses had to be curtailed. Information was not so easily manipulated and aggregated when our country was founded, but the importance of what happens to information and who has control over it has increased as our ability to leverage information processing has increased. As a result, we are becoming aware of new, hitherto unrecognized rights. We're going to have to fight for them. I'm not sure if we need to do this politically, commercially, or with a combination of the two.
    - randallsquared 17y ago
      With all due respect to him, however, Stallman's position seems contradictory now. At first, when developers sent us information and it was on our computers, Stallman said that we should be able to use this information in any way we chose, since it was our freedom to use our property that was at stake. I agree with this. Now, however, when we send information to the developers, it seems that Stallman has switched sides, and doesn't believe that that recipient or holder of the information should be free to do as they will with it. In light of this, maybe it was never freedom to use information we had that was important to Stallman, but something else that coincided.
      - stcredzero 17y ago
        Yes, but me sending you my friend network graph and SSN versus, you sending me the source code of a GPL'ed app -- these are not symmetrical! Also, in Stallman's world, if you don't want to share your source, you're free to keep it to yourself. Likewise, he urges users to keep their information to themselves.
        randallsquared 17y ago
        If you specify a non-GPL'ed app, they seem symmetrical to me; they're both information that the sender may have put a value on the recipient not distributing. In both cases, the sender is welcome to not send it, and to not receive the benefit of doing so. But in both cases, once the recipient has the information, it should be theirs to do with as they wish (absent specific contract). Given that you have to give your SSN for all kinds of miscellaneous stuff where you don't particularly trust the recipient, these days (credit apps, etc), I don't think anyone has the illusion that their SSN is private, do they? Still? Privacy is effectively dead, and the only substitute we have is secrecy, which can be destroyed by any party to the secret. This is the world we live in, now, and I can't see any way to reverse course, no matter what the law says.
        stcredzero 17y ago
        If you specify a non-GPL'ed app, they seem symmetrical to me Yes, but remember, I'm talking about the situation in Stallman's world. No one would use non-open software, and no one would send their personal information. As far as privacy being dead, "dead" is a misleading term here. Privacy is a concept, and as such has no vital signs. It can be alive again as easily as a comic book character. The transition from the time before universal suffrage is just as big as the change from the current situation to privacy as a right. If you ask ordinary people about these topics, you'll find that many, if not most people out there have some sort of expectation about privacy. I think that these are rights waiting to be discovered. Just as my downloading a GPL'ed app or marking the checkbox under the Terms of Service means I agree to a specific contract, I think that there should be certain implicit contract going the other direction. Just as no one should be able to, say, sell kitchen utensils that blow up and kill people. The SSN as a secret is in trouble. However, there are more robust protocols than the secret number.
  - bad_user 17y ago
    > relying on applications that you can't modify Personally I don't worry about that. What I worry about is the safety of my data. When the day comes when I can't use a desktop client to download email from GMail, or when I won't be able to open a .doc file without M. Office, then I'll be worried. > If it's not, everyone is at the mercy of one company. I don't know about that. I've heard it from Stallman's talks but it's too dramatic for my taste. What people should be worrying about is open specs to protocols and file formats. The best example of a software monopoly is Windows, and if Windows was the only operating system available, then we'd surely be at the mercy of one company. But that's not the case and while some people can point to the GPL as the catalyst, that's not necessarily the case. It might be the technology's fast pace or the academia which has always favored collaboration, not to mention that the open source model of development is in many ways just better. I don't think software is the domain in which monopolies can be established indefinitely.
    - sneakums 17y ago
      > What I worry about is the safety of my data. When the day comes when I can't use a desktop client to download email from GMail, or when I won't be able to open a .doc file without M. Office, then I'll be worried. But then it will be too late.
halo 17y ago
Hm. I'm unsure. I think current software patents last too long, to a point where non-obvious inventions become obvious as a field develops, and too many obvious or suitably vague patents are passed as well. Clearly you shouldn't be able to patent how many clicks something takes. Whatsmore, submarine patents really are a threat, and there should be a 'use it or lose it' enforcement clause, similar to trademarks. But these aren't problems of software patents alone, these also apply to patents in general, and situation really needs to change. However, I'm not sure I can say that software patents are inherently a bad idea. I have no real objection to the creators of the MP3 format receiving income from their innovations, for example, or other, similarly complex software innovations. The current system being flawed doesn't mean that a better, more reasonable, system couldn't be made.
- dantheman 17y ago
  Patents were to cover inventions not algorithms... copyright covers the implementation of a piece of software, a patent is not needed if you look at a piece of software and copy it then you've violated copyright. There is not copyright on physical inventions, hence the "need" for patent protection. The main issue is that sure it's great to be compensated for your work but it is not a right. Patents and copyrights are to encourage people to produce & that is all. The software industry does not need patents to encourage people to innovate, so by definition we don't need patents in software.
  - gaius 17y ago
    The software industry does not need patents to encourage people to innovate Without intellectual property, why would anyone ever acquire a startup? Just copy it or poach a few key developers. Remember, everyone's gotta eat, put a roof over their head and so on. RMS has got that covered with a million-dollar grant from the MacArthur Foundation and another cool million from the Takeda foundation. What do you got?
    - kiba 17y ago
      Well, RedHat is doing fine. Anybody can poach a few developers or copy from them. In fact, there are copycats who did just that. However, RedHat manages to survive and even thrive just fine.
10ren 17y ago
Can you elaborate on that please.

Of course, history has shown that Stallman was correct about the insidious effect of software patents.

Create 17y ago

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html

wmf 17y ago

Now that RMS has won that one, he's moved on to warn us of the insidious evils of... JavaScript.

jrockway 17y ago
Wrong. He's warning you about relying on applications that you can't modify. Just because the app runs in a browser doesn't mean that it is magically immune from bugs. If it's free software, the community can fix the bugs. If it's not, everyone is at the mercy of one company. It's the same argument as always, just with a spin that you may not have thought of before.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  The key is that power over information can be taken away from the community at large. That this is done in the accepted legal and commercial framework is a little beside the point. First, there was no rule of law, and the citizen had no protection but to supplicate to the most powerful. Then, there was the rule of law, but the laws were written by someone else. Then, there came democracy, and citizens had some sort of indirect input to ruling themselves. Afterward, commercial interests found that they could exercise power over others using the framework of markets, and monopolys and other abuses had to be curtailed. Information was not so easily manipulated and aggregated when our country was founded, but the importance of what happens to information and who has control over it has increased as our ability to leverage information processing has increased. As a result, we are becoming aware of new, hitherto unrecognized rights. We're going to have to fight for them. I'm not sure if we need to do this politically, commercially, or with a combination of the two.
  - randallsquared 17y ago
    With all due respect to him, however, Stallman's position seems contradictory now. At first, when developers sent us information and it was on our computers, Stallman said that we should be able to use this information in any way we chose, since it was our freedom to use our property that was at stake. I agree with this. Now, however, when we send information to the developers, it seems that Stallman has switched sides, and doesn't believe that that recipient or holder of the information should be free to do as they will with it. In light of this, maybe it was never freedom to use information we had that was important to Stallman, but something else that coincided.
    - stcredzero 17y ago
      Yes, but me sending you my friend network graph and SSN versus, you sending me the source code of a GPL'ed app -- these are not symmetrical! Also, in Stallman's world, if you don't want to share your source, you're free to keep it to yourself. Likewise, he urges users to keep their information to themselves.
      - randallsquared 17y ago
        If you specify a non-GPL'ed app, they seem symmetrical to me; they're both information that the sender may have put a value on the recipient not distributing. In both cases, the sender is welcome to not send it, and to not receive the benefit of doing so. But in both cases, once the recipient has the information, it should be theirs to do with as they wish (absent specific contract). Given that you have to give your SSN for all kinds of miscellaneous stuff where you don't particularly trust the recipient, these days (credit apps, etc), I don't think anyone has the illusion that their SSN is private, do they? Still? Privacy is effectively dead, and the only substitute we have is secrecy, which can be destroyed by any party to the secret. This is the world we live in, now, and I can't see any way to reverse course, no matter what the law says.
        stcredzero 17y ago
        If you specify a non-GPL'ed app, they seem symmetrical to me Yes, but remember, I'm talking about the situation in Stallman's world. No one would use non-open software, and no one would send their personal information. As far as privacy being dead, "dead" is a misleading term here. Privacy is a concept, and as such has no vital signs. It can be alive again as easily as a comic book character. The transition from the time before universal suffrage is just as big as the change from the current situation to privacy as a right. If you ask ordinary people about these topics, you'll find that many, if not most people out there have some sort of expectation about privacy. I think that these are rights waiting to be discovered. Just as my downloading a GPL'ed app or marking the checkbox under the Terms of Service means I agree to a specific contract, I think that there should be certain implicit contract going the other direction. Just as no one should be able to, say, sell kitchen utensils that blow up and kill people. The SSN as a secret is in trouble. However, there are more robust protocols than the secret number.
- bad_user 17y ago
  > relying on applications that you can't modify Personally I don't worry about that. What I worry about is the safety of my data. When the day comes when I can't use a desktop client to download email from GMail, or when I won't be able to open a .doc file without M. Office, then I'll be worried. > If it's not, everyone is at the mercy of one company. I don't know about that. I've heard it from Stallman's talks but it's too dramatic for my taste. What people should be worrying about is open specs to protocols and file formats. The best example of a software monopoly is Windows, and if Windows was the only operating system available, then we'd surely be at the mercy of one company. But that's not the case and while some people can point to the GPL as the catalyst, that's not necessarily the case. It might be the technology's fast pace or the academia which has always favored collaboration, not to mention that the open source model of development is in many ways just better. I don't think software is the domain in which monopolies can be established indefinitely.
  - sneakums 17y ago
    > What I worry about is the safety of my data. When the day comes when I can't use a desktop client to download email from GMail, or when I won't be able to open a .doc file without M. Office, then I'll be worried. But then it will be too late.

halo 17y ago

Hm. I'm unsure. I think current software patents last too long, to a point where non-obvious inventions become obvious as a field develops, and too many obvious or suitably vague patents are passed as well. Clearly you shouldn't be able to patent how many clicks something takes. Whatsmore, submarine patents really are a threat, and there should be a 'use it or lose it' enforcement clause, similar to trademarks. But these aren't problems of software patents alone, these also apply to patents in general, and situation really needs to change. However, I'm not sure I can say that software patents are inherently a bad idea. I have no real objection to the creators of the MP3 format receiving income from their innovations, for example, or other, similarly complex software innovations. The current system being flawed doesn't mean that a better, more reasonable, system couldn't be made.

dantheman 17y ago
Patents were to cover inventions not algorithms... copyright covers the implementation of a piece of software, a patent is not needed if you look at a piece of software and copy it then you've violated copyright. There is not copyright on physical inventions, hence the "need" for patent protection. The main issue is that sure it's great to be compensated for your work but it is not a right. Patents and copyrights are to encourage people to produce & that is all. The software industry does not need patents to encourage people to innovate, so by definition we don't need patents in software.
- gaius 17y ago
  The software industry does not need patents to encourage people to innovate Without intellectual property, why would anyone ever acquire a startup? Just copy it or poach a few key developers. Remember, everyone's gotta eat, put a roof over their head and so on. RMS has got that covered with a million-dollar grant from the MacArthur Foundation and another cool million from the Takeda foundation. What do you got?
  - kiba 17y ago
    Well, RedHat is doing fine. Anybody can poach a few developers or copy from them. In fact, there are copycats who did just that. However, RedHat manages to survive and even thrive just fine.

10ren 17y ago

Can you elaborate on that please.