4 ms·

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

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 18y 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 18y 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.
- randallsquared 18y ago
  > Without intellectual property, why would anyone ever acquire a startup? Just copy it or poach a few key developers. Reddit has no unique "intellectual property" of a make-or-break nature, as far as I know. Yet they were bought. There are lots of reasons to buy startups that have nothing to do with patents or copyright: to get the founders, to get the name, domain, and code, to get the userbase (same as last, in some cases), to get contracts or other associated deals, and probably lots more.
  - vorador 17y ago
    And don't forget the spirit. The spirit is more important than the product.
- dantheman 18y ago
  Well, personally I'm not a huge fan of intellectual property (except for trademarks -- a way of reducing fraud), but I wasn't talking about copyright I was talking about patents. With copyright I can't take Microsoft office, but I can reimplement it; with patents I can't do that -- I'm forbidden to do what the patents cover. Imagine patenting the WYSIWG interface. There is a huge amount of value in having code that works so copyright is more than enough for companies to profit off their software. Now,as I mentioned earlier I don't really agree with copyright, primarily because it lasts too long & its not a voluntary contract between individuals. Everything that copyright covers could be defined in a contract between the buyer and seller and not defined by politicians.
- greendestiny 18y ago
  We were talking about patents not copyright. You can't take all their submissions, comments and votes and make your own site with it. I think software patents harm innovation. I think file sharing is a very minor offense that shouldn't entertain anywhere near the penalties it does. I think industries like drug companies ought to be able to get some protection on their very expensive research and trials - but the time frame should be based on the necessity of protecting that research pathway. I think artists should be able to set licenses they want their work to carry, we should go to other artists work if we disagree with the license rather than getting rid of copyright. Its hard to ever get into the subtleties of the subject, because people get so angry about bad patents or copyright penalties that they are drawn to pleasingly utopian fantasies where we get rid of all IP laws.
- cturner 17y ago
  Without intellectual property, why would anyone ever acquire a startup? Just copy it or poach a few key developers. In practice a small organisation won't ever sue a large institution for patent or copyright infringement even when it's in clear breach because they have limited resources, low interest in antagonising the other party (which is most likely to be a customer not a competitor) and better things to do that are linked to survival. I've worked in a wide range of developer roles, including bitsy consulting work. Copyright and patents have never been significant in the business models of any of the companies I've worked for in a positive way. Conversely, I have been denied the ability to work by a court injunciton accusing me of copyright infringement (settled as soon as the business situation had changed) and I've seen companies slapped down in an anti-competitive way for "patent infringement". What software customers care about is being able to get people to solve their problems. They want to be able to pick up the phone and get support, and get changes made. The actual build that is live at the moment is just a short-lived tool in their business process. If you had the source code for an organisation's risk management system or trading system or human resources system it would be near worthless. You'd have to get the code to work in your setting and then bend it to your requirements which will be different. You'd end up with an unwieldy system that is inferior to what you'd get if you pieced one together based on your requirements. Where goodwill is involved the barriers are far greater still. But still - imagine a world without copyright. Fly-by-night operations would act as marketing efforts for the company who had their act together. Conversely, if a company got acquired and run into the ground, its customers wouldn't be permanently locked into a parasitic vendor. Startups wouldn't be at risk of shutdown from patent trolls. These patterns would be beneficial to startups and consumers. poach a few key developers If you don't need to goodwill you'd be better off just poaching the key developers and ignoring their prior source and getting them to write something that meets your need. If you care about the goodwill you need the rest of the business.
anamax 17y ago
> Patents were to cover inventions not algorithms Patents don't cover algorithms. They can cover the use of algorithms to accomplish a particular task but that doesn't affect others much. In fact, the general patents rely on the doctrine of equivalents and are thus algorithm independent. The closest you can get to an algorithm patent is to claim the use of an algorithm to produce algorithm-specific output. For example, one could patent the use of a new sorting algorithm to produce sorted output. However, such patents are almost all extremely weak because there are typically multiple algorithms to accomplish the same result. Yes, a patent on an algorithm to solve a specific NP-complete problem in polynomial time would affect others, but isn't that exactly the sort of thing that patents should cover?

gaius 18y 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 18y 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.
randallsquared 18y ago
> Without intellectual property, why would anyone ever acquire a startup? Just copy it or poach a few key developers. Reddit has no unique "intellectual property" of a make-or-break nature, as far as I know. Yet they were bought. There are lots of reasons to buy startups that have nothing to do with patents or copyright: to get the founders, to get the name, domain, and code, to get the userbase (same as last, in some cases), to get contracts or other associated deals, and probably lots more.
- vorador 17y ago
  And don't forget the spirit. The spirit is more important than the product.
dantheman 18y ago
Well, personally I'm not a huge fan of intellectual property (except for trademarks -- a way of reducing fraud), but I wasn't talking about copyright I was talking about patents. With copyright I can't take Microsoft office, but I can reimplement it; with patents I can't do that -- I'm forbidden to do what the patents cover. Imagine patenting the WYSIWG interface. There is a huge amount of value in having code that works so copyright is more than enough for companies to profit off their software. Now,as I mentioned earlier I don't really agree with copyright, primarily because it lasts too long & its not a voluntary contract between individuals. Everything that copyright covers could be defined in a contract between the buyer and seller and not defined by politicians.
greendestiny 18y ago
We were talking about patents not copyright. You can't take all their submissions, comments and votes and make your own site with it. I think software patents harm innovation. I think file sharing is a very minor offense that shouldn't entertain anywhere near the penalties it does. I think industries like drug companies ought to be able to get some protection on their very expensive research and trials - but the time frame should be based on the necessity of protecting that research pathway. I think artists should be able to set licenses they want their work to carry, we should go to other artists work if we disagree with the license rather than getting rid of copyright. Its hard to ever get into the subtleties of the subject, because people get so angry about bad patents or copyright penalties that they are drawn to pleasingly utopian fantasies where we get rid of all IP laws.
cturner 17y ago
Without intellectual property, why would anyone ever acquire a startup? Just copy it or poach a few key developers. In practice a small organisation won't ever sue a large institution for patent or copyright infringement even when it's in clear breach because they have limited resources, low interest in antagonising the other party (which is most likely to be a customer not a competitor) and better things to do that are linked to survival. I've worked in a wide range of developer roles, including bitsy consulting work. Copyright and patents have never been significant in the business models of any of the companies I've worked for in a positive way. Conversely, I have been denied the ability to work by a court injunciton accusing me of copyright infringement (settled as soon as the business situation had changed) and I've seen companies slapped down in an anti-competitive way for "patent infringement". What software customers care about is being able to get people to solve their problems. They want to be able to pick up the phone and get support, and get changes made. The actual build that is live at the moment is just a short-lived tool in their business process. If you had the source code for an organisation's risk management system or trading system or human resources system it would be near worthless. You'd have to get the code to work in your setting and then bend it to your requirements which will be different. You'd end up with an unwieldy system that is inferior to what you'd get if you pieced one together based on your requirements. Where goodwill is involved the barriers are far greater still. But still - imagine a world without copyright. Fly-by-night operations would act as marketing efforts for the company who had their act together. Conversely, if a company got acquired and run into the ground, its customers wouldn't be permanently locked into a parasitic vendor. Startups wouldn't be at risk of shutdown from patent trolls. These patterns would be beneficial to startups and consumers. poach a few key developers If you don't need to goodwill you'd be better off just poaching the key developers and ignoring their prior source and getting them to write something that meets your need. If you care about the goodwill you need the rest of the business.

anamax 17y ago

> Patents were to cover inventions not algorithms Patents don't cover algorithms. They can cover the use of algorithms to accomplish a particular task but that doesn't affect others much. In fact, the general patents rely on the doctrine of equivalents and are thus algorithm independent. The closest you can get to an algorithm patent is to claim the use of an algorithm to produce algorithm-specific output. For example, one could patent the use of a new sorting algorithm to produce sorted output. However, such patents are almost all extremely weak because there are typically multiple algorithms to accomplish the same result. Yes, a patent on an algorithm to solve a specific NP-complete problem in polynomial time would affect others, but isn't that exactly the sort of thing that patents should cover?