Stallman Critical of OSDL Patent Project 226
PatPending writes to mention a News.com article about Richard Stallman's objections to the OSDL patent project. He argues that the project may actually be 'worse than nothing', as it will undermine certain legal tactics. From the article: "'Thus, our main chance of invalidating a patent in court is to find prior art that the Patent Office has not studied,' Stallman wrote. Second, patent applicants could use the prior art uncovered by the OSDL to write patent claims that simply avoid the technologies used in the tagged software. 'The Patent Office is eager to help patent applicants do this,' Stallman wrote. Finally, he wrote, a 'laborious half measure' such as the Open Source as Prior Art project could divert attention from the real problem: that software is patentable in the first place."
Aboslutly correct. (Score:5, Insightful)
Aboslutly correct.
Thank God (Score:2)
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I guess I'm going to be one of the people chanting "down with this project" now?
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Right now, the problems he was talking about are more real, DRM, and trusted computing are real problems that affect you right now.
He hasn't changed, but the reality did change into what he said it would.
Software patents right now have a harmful effect, but they c
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Interesting)
Drug and hardware patents are also problematic, but the reform had better be well considered, or the cure could be worse than the disease. The specific case of software, however, is one where we can eschew playing without destabilizing the economy too readily.
Moral correctness is not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, in the long term, and a perfect world, you might want to get rid of software patents. Right now however they are real and are here and measure that combat them face to face have some merit.
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We must continue to point out that it's not only broken, but that software patents are a mistake to begin with.
You don't need the perfect world, you need to put in the efforts to take political steps to see that congress ends software patents.
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Indeed. Look at crypto export regulations. A lot of people now think that cryptography isn't meaningfully regulated, but in reality, only mass-market software is free from the onerous restrictions. If you start selling, say, a secure wireless keyboard over the Internet, you can still be charged with a crime. (Why do you think there are *still* no actually-secure wireless keyboards on the market?)
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-1 Analogy
No it's not like that at all. It's not like anything, except the plain statement that patents, designed for finite, physical objects, should not be applied to infinitely reproducible items like software.
Software is not a house, a car or any other physical thing. Please stop pretending it is.
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Re:Moral correctness is not enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Because chances are the algorithm you created was most likely neither novel nor unique to the large amounts of algorithms created before you. As in... Your algorithm had to be based on some math that everyone knows or at the most an obscure math professor came up with years ago.
You aren't writing your own language but taking from knowledge of mankind and applying it to your own methods.
Secondly, copyrights protect someone from copying your code, but not your methods because if someone can simply recreate your algorithm simply by looking at the results and not even see any of your source code then again... your algorithm was neither novel nor unique and therby not deserve a patent.
However, your effort and code should be copyrighted and protected by such methods.
Re:Moral correctness is not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Moral correctness is not enough (Score:4, Insightful)
----
Freedom is on the March!
http://www.movingtofreedom.org [movingtofreedom.org]
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I also beleive that patents in regards to software don't fit the timeframe for patents on physical devices. It would be a far different situation if patents were only valid on software concepts for 3-5 years opposed to 20.
I would seriously challenge anyone to name a software concept from the past 20 years that doesn't h
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Re:Moral correctness is not enough (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Moral correctness is not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
The same reason you spend time writing software at all (that others with more resources may duplicate and undercut): The new algorithm solves a particular need of yours. It is useful.
This is why Sir Charles Hoare created the quicksort in 1960. It probably didn't even occur to him that this was something he should prevent others from using, and he still found it useful to invent. Thank God he did not -- could not -- patent it, or it would have been over a decade before people could have taken free advantage of the fastest-average-time general sorting algorithm known today. Imagine everyone else had been doing the same thing -- locking up merge sort, bin sort, r/b binary trees, avl binary trees, b-trees, etc etc. With all these foundations of computer science locked up in patents for 14-20 years, how much progress do you think the software world would have made compared to what it did with free access to all these ideas? Remember, we're talking about a fourth of the entire existence of computers.
Why does software not being a physical object make it less suitable to be patented?
Because software is math.
That's all it is. A program is just a series of mathematical operations performed by a computer. Now the computer is an invention. But the software is just a calculation. Patenting a software algorithm is like patenting a sequence of button pushes on your calculator, and by "like" I mean "is very literally the same".
Imagine if Sir Issac Newton had decided to lock away his Calculus? He might have had some legal troubles from Leibniz, but once they came to an amicable arangement, everyone else would have been out of luck. Is Calculus not a great invention? Of course! But like all math, it is an invention whose benefit comes from what could be built upon it. Thank goodness that Newton published his book and did not restrict others from using what it described, or you have to wonder where we'd be today.
Why shouldn't software be patentable? Because it's a patent on math, the fundamental language of the universe.
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Given patents are restrictions, patents are only allowed to exist where necessary, and solely for the "greater good" of society.
Without patents there would be no protection for inventors' inventions, so the theory says they wouldn't invent anything, and society would suffer.
Large businesses already have large cash reserves and an infra
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Except you don't have to reduce software to simpler elements to call it math.
Software is math, in the same way that "3 * y^2 + (7 / 6)x = z" is math.
Now you may argue that "3 * y^2 + (7 / 6)x" is actually a series of characters that represent math, but again, that's exactly the same as software. Software is a machine-readable representation of a series of mathematical statements, while the equation
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Your argument is effectively saying that it wouldn't. After all, it's just maths, right? Anyone can do it and we know it all already, so there's no no need to incentivise new research.
What? You think I'm arguing that neither math nor its reliable and spe
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Because there are laws covering ideas and, however wrong they might be, they pass the test of applicability. Ultimately, patents were designed to present the rapid duplication of physical objects (and explicitly not ideas).
I'll get to development costs i
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It is quite easy to bring the product to fore, in case of software.
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The advantage you should (and naturally) have is that you can put the product into production and profit from it before anyone else--sometimes that is all it takes to achieve market dominance. If you invent a new type of software, you will be the originator that everyone will see as the genuine thing or real deal. By the time others copy it, you'll have improved the product for the next release of the software. Why do you think even though there are tons of iPod knockoffs that iPods are still unrivaled as t
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It not anything nearly that general. Or, at least, we don't know that it is. What we know is that we've tried applying patents to software, and over the last few decades, it's proven to be detrimental.
Personally, I think you should be able to file a patent on nearly any invention, but patents should be
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Does the problem still exist? Yes.
Does the law firm help? Yes
I would call it a "better than nothing" measure but I wouldn't call it a solution.Re: (Score:2)
Sure, in the long term, and a perfect world, you might want to get rid of software patents. Right now however they are real and are here and measure that combat them face to face have some merit.
IMHO, a closer analogy to Stallman's position would be: "it's like saying people shouldn't spend money on wireless home security cameras if it makes them neglect securing their windows and doors, and particularly if it will make them even le
Where is your counterargument? (Score:2)
Re:Aboslutly correct. (Score:4, Insightful)
We are two months from an important mid-term election, two years from a presidential election. Patent reform ranks somewhere below The Bridge to Nowhere on the national political agenda.
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Considering how patenting software is stifling innovation, I consider it pretty important.
"Aboslutly "
you know, I proof read that and still screwed it up. sigh.
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The thing is, you have to be realistic. You might see a slightly more centrist Congress after November. But that is all you are likely to see.
Absolutism is impractical (Score:4, Insightful)
If not, how many ideas do we want to see slip into proprietary hands while we maintain our moral purism about software patents? This is a political issue, and political agendas live, eat, sleep & breathe half-measures. According to Stallman, "If we are not careful, this can sap the pressure for a real solution." Erm, what pressure? Where is the well-funded, politically connected lobby that's creating more pressure for a Real Solution than beneficiaries of software patents can create in the opposite direction? `Cause short of that, we all know that we're not going to see a Real Solution anytime soon.
IMO, the idea of "Open Source as Prior Art" is basically a good one that needs some tweaking. If Stallman is correct (and I have no way of knowing whether he is) that "when prior art is considered by the Patent Office during the patent-granting process, it usually loses any weight it might have had in a court case," then that might be a problem. However, I can't understand how patent holders of a variation on an OSDL-tagged thingamabob could (a) claim their idea is patentable because of some variation, and still (b) go after the FOSS-derived works. Wouldn't the very granting of the patent in spite of the OSDL art be the basis for establishing non-infringement?
Stallman wants the very idea of ideas to be irrevocably tied to freedom. That's a beautiful vision, and God bless him if he can ever pull it off; I'm (sadly) not optimistic. Meanwhile, I'll settle for having as many of them as possible stay clean from proprietary claims. Failing both, anonymous/pseudonymous coding & releasing might be our only refuge.
Not entirely (Score:2)
It is correct as far as it goes, but what he's failing to realize is what is in place today.
In an ideal world, software wouldn't be patentable. But we don't live in an ideal world. Therefore, it might be good to deal with the situation at hand first.
That may be true... (Score:2)
After gathering enough evidence (while, at the same time, actually protecting people from lawsuits), we will win either by actually educating patent officers to the point where it's no longer fashionable to patent a system for swinging on a swing, or something even more ridiculous in
Stallman... half right (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stallman... half right (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't believe anything which could be described as an algorithm should be patentable. I also don't believe that you should patent public API's, as such "programming interfaces" are by definition intended for use by other programs; public APIs normally are widely distributed in documentation, which at least prevents others from patenting the APIs which you might release (as your release will obviously constitute prior art). I suppose that if you implement computer software which is sufficiently original, not completely obvious after 5 minutes of thought, and is not representable as a mathematical algorithm, that might deserve the protection of a patent, but for the most part, simple copyright ought to provide enough protection....
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I suppose that if you implement computer software which is sufficiently original, not completely obvious after 5 minutes of thought, and is not representable as a mathematical algorithm, that might deserve the protection of a patent
So was everyone asleep in that part of computational theory where they point out that everything (including hardware) is reducible to a mathematical algorithm?
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In theory, perhaps. More accurately, ideal hardware can be represented or modelled by mathematical algorithms, but real-world hardware exhibits a number of differences from ideal models, including non-perfect TTL response: real transistors aren't ideal binary on-off devices and exhibit non-linear behavior especially as they heat up or run outside of
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Perhaps it's cheaper in the short term, but if letting the worst 10% of software patents go through annoys enough people that we're able to get rid of all software patents, or the worst 90%, it would be cheaper in the long run to allow obvious "spam patents".
What's broken: the obvious "spam patents" or the system that approves
If your kitchen counter was on fire... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad Analogies aplenty in this thread (Score:3, Insightful)
Ooh! Let me try! (Score:5, Funny)
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Or is it more like starting a fire in my house without locks on the doors or windows?
Or, wait, maybe it's like setting my lock on fire and waiting for a bunch of people or organizations to pour water into new fireproofing techniques?
Or maybe it's more like a car where the hood is welded shut and a fire starts inside it and yo
Re:If your kitchen counter was on fire... (Score:4, Insightful)
Playing the odds (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd bet on RMS, smelly hippy though he is, being right in the mid to long term, if for no other reason than he hasn't (to the best of my knowledge) been wrong yet. In any prediction. Ever.
In purely practical terms, the OSDL patent project is like trying to put out a burning forest by standing close enough to sweat on it.
Have you read what RMS writes? (Score:2)
"All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:
Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development.
But if the computer buyer makes a donation to software development himself, he can take a credit against the tax. He can donate to the project of his own choosing--often, chosen because he hopes to use the results when it is done. He c
Re:Playing the odds (Score:5, Funny)
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So would I.
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...but with blackjack? And hookers?
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Your over-sensitivity is silly. I'm an RMS fanboy; I've traded emails with him on numerous occasions, and he even congratulated me on writing my daughter's birth announcement in C and GPLing it. Still, RMS is the archetype of the smelly hippie hacker. That's a factual observation and not some random insult.
Re:Playing the odds (Score:5, Funny)
---- baby.c ----
/* This code is distributable under the terms of the GPL. However, I *
* retain full rights to its output for up to eighteen years. */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
void main()
{
void *a = malloc((size_t) weight);
sleep(270 * 24 * 60 * 60);
if (fork())
{
free(a);
my.weight -= 20;
wait();
}
else
{
my.length = 18; /* Inches */
my.weight = 101;
printf("Hello, world!\n");
}
}
--------
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You just took a wrong turn, dude.
Oh! You're just a troll. If that was a bombshell (him being opposed to software patents, not "intelle
no patents != no IP protection (Score:2)
Ever heard of copyright? It's part of what's called 'intellectual property' as are trademarks. Being anti-software patents is not saying programmers can't protect their IP, many people believe that copyright does this adequately and patents are inappropriate for software IP protection. Just like saying that books shouldn't be patented is not an attack on authors IP rights.
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Better than that? You don't seem to be really aware of copyrights as IP protection for software, so let's revisit the topic being addressed again then:
You wrote [slashdot.org] "Then Stallman drops the bombshell: he doesn't believe a software developer should have any right to protect its intellectual property in the f
patent GPL? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Actually I think you are right (and I think the OSDL is doing the right thing), problem is there is no other way. If there was a way seperate from what the OSDL is doing then great. I don't think there is. I don't think that the establishment will allow change as massive as abolishing SW patents. Next best thing is a Db that demonstrates that everything is enough a deritive of prior art as to not be patentable.
-nB
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This is a cop-out argument. If you write software and choose not to protect it, the copyright is meanlingless. Putting a copyright notice on your software and thus signaling to the world that you intend to protect it (as RMS does) is just as active an act as filing for a patent.
Re:patent GPL? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stallman's issue isn't with copyright - his issue is with people not voluntarily giving up their code to the community. He is all for copyright and ownership of code. His problem is that software is not something you should be able to patent, and that the OSDL initiative distracts from this point.
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Sure you can... IF the patent-holder allows you to do so. That is OSDL's goal.
Oh yes it is [gnu.org]. In particular, his issue is that copyrights were meant as a concession to artists & inventors to further the public good. The public gives up its freedom to use certain arts, ideas, and inventions for a short period of time in exchange for making those things public knowledge. But nowa
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But that's the whole problem - people shouldn't be allowed to have that kind of power over software. Having a law you disagree with shouldn't be fixed by begging people not to enforce it. That kind of goal puts us at the mercy of patent holders. If you agree with Stallman, and think that software patents are bad in part because it means you can't make free software without violating patents, that basically makes the entire free so
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Suggesting that RMS should deal with patent laws the same way he dealt with copyright laws is like suggesting he use a plunger to extinguish a kitchen fire since clogged drains and kitchen fires are both "household problems".
The GPL allows software authors to publish and distribute their software in a
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Stallman and the FSF -aren't- against software copyrights as a matter of principle. He does call for reducing the length of copyright and the scope of what it can restrict, but not for an outright abolition. On the other hand, the FSF (and incidentally I agree) regards patents as inappropriate in any case involving software. That is, in fact, their position-software should be eligible only for copyright, never for patents.
You can read more here, [gnu.org] which probably explains it a lot more thoroughly then I do.
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Because something like the GPL cannot work for patents. Every time the design is changed, you have to take out a new patent, which costs a large amount of money. In effect, this would be a fee for modifying the software. There is no way to construct such a system that is compati
Software patents aren't going anywhere (Score:2, Insightful)
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I'm going to go stare at the corner for a while.
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Two hundred years ago, liberal democracy was an oddity, now it has spread over the globe [wikipedia.org]. More recently, we gained the 40-hour work week and young children no longer work in mines (in America and Western Europe at
RMS is against higher quality patents? (Score:2)
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Horns Of A Dilemna (Score:5, Insightful)
- Software patents.
- Proprietary (that is, closed) software.
Here's the thing: Probably the best defense against having to deal with software patents is to keep the software closed. Don't make the code public and don't tell how it works. If people don't know you've violated their patent, they are not likely to sue you, and their software patent won't be worth very much.Such a strategy is not dishonest - even when behaving with the highest integrity, inadvertent patent violation is not only possible, but likely. You should not knowingly violate patents, but you aren't required to help the patent holders identify offenders either.
By hating both simultaneously, RMS has given himself a very tough row to hoe. Open software is highly vulnerable to patent litigation.
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I hate to ask this, but if someone uses your code and uses it in their own... Isn't that a copyright violation?
I say this because just because you have the code doesn't make the process easy to copy. Unless of course yo
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Many brilliant and inventive ideas can often be implemented in a few lines of code. The Fast Fourier Transform and Quick Sort are just two examples (although neither were patented).
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But I would bet most software patents do not have both properties. Certainly in my industry (geophysical processing) this is the case. The very things that make patents less known also their violation less obvious. Thus the patents you are most familiar with are not necessari
a grey solution is no solution (Score:2, Insightful)
This debate has been rehashed so much, but I really get tired of hearing some things like:
"Software patents are here to stay get used to it."
Bloody hell, how defeatest is that. They aren't here to stay, but they will be if that is going to be people's attitude. Also aiming at stop gap measures is a complete waste of resources and will only give softwar
Abstraction Physics = software not patentable (Score:2)
Stallman is correct that this OSDL based project is of FALSE intent.
The intent is to deceive and distract from the real issue.
When honesty of the matter (the nature of software) is dismissed via non-sequeturs and illogical irrational response, you just can't help but know what the genuine intent of the effort is.
There is no real excuse to not address the matter correctly. So why is it not being honestly addressed, but instead the presentation of so called short t
Say it aint so! (Score:3, Insightful)
But the truth is they WANT software patents. I don't see them lobbying to change the status quo. All they are interested in the "quality":
Stallman: Ding? If not:
IBMicrosoft: "Thank you little critters for making our patent applications the strongest on the planet. Now we can make sure that nobody will ever overturn our patent on quicksort, mergesort, bubblesort, mydickinyourassort...and don't forget the youinventedandIpatentedsort [wikipedia.org]"
Backfire is an understatement...
I work at OSDL... (Score:3, Informative)
I don't actually work on this particular project, but I did contribute some of the verbage for the project's main page. Not because I particularly believe in the project, but because my best friend asked it as a favor.
Like generally EVERYONE, I believe software patents should be abolished. Like RMS, I worry this project might be a crutch for the software patent system. Part of me wants to just see the patent office fall smack on its face and be forced to drop the whole idea of software patents entirely.
But realistically, come on, that is head-in-the-sand thinking. Software patents aren't going to simply go away because we wish it so. The U.S. Patent Office itself doesn't have the authority to stop granting software patents. Getting rid of them is going to take a concerted effort by a LOT of people, and ultimately may simply come down to the whims of whomever is in control of the U.S. government. From what I've seen, most people don't care enough about software patents to put time into fighting to eliminate them. (Speaking for myself, I'd rather be fighting the U.S. government about global warming or international relations, before I'd fight about software patents.)
Despite my reservations, I'm actually glad to see OSDL taking action against bad software patents. It actually has the USPTO in good solid dialog with the community, and has engaged a wide variety of FOSS organisations like SourceForge and OSU-OSL on issues geared towards realistic, feasible approaches to mitigation of the problem. Last week OSDL held an on-site meeting with several representatives from the USPTO and various FOSS organizations to start towards some really cool solutions. While I philosophically am of the same mind as RMS about eliminating software patents entirely, I am seeing this OSDL effort making actual, tangible progress towards at least eliminating the absurd patent stories that keep appearing here on Slashdot.
That said, I wish things were this simple. My friend that was organizing this project has left OSDL to go work for Canonical on Ubuntu. While he says it's mainly because he *really* wants to contribute his efforts towards improving Ubuntu's security, I suspect secretly a part is because of his true feelings about software patents. Whatever the case, in practice this prior art effort has suffered a major setback by the loss of its primary technical person.
In the end, like always, it comes down to the rest of us. What do you think about software patents? Do you care enough to put your own time into solving the issues? Do you choose to do nothing and allow any form of software patents at all? Would you prefer to at least eliminate the bad ones? Or do you wish to devote time to getting rid of all software patents entirely? The easiest thing to do is what my friend, myself, and RMS are doing, and simply ignore it with the wish that software patents should just magically go away. The harder but probably more effective thing would be to put time into some sort of project aimed at pushing back and achieving some progress. I really respect those who have chosen this more difficult course, and suspect in the end they will be the ones that define our future situation in regards to software patents.
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Not a workable solution. Virtually the entire software industry is taking out patents for defensive reasons if nothing else. Even companies that otherwise are FOSS friendly are. Who on earth, for example, would you recommend that we buy highly specialized trust account software from?
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The part that really sucks is that I have to file these damned things, simply because our system allows them. I'm trying to think of just ONE software patent that made a creative invetor some money...
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You're not seriously saying that no piece of patented software has made money are you?
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Overall, software patents hamper creativity in America. Worse, it gives all the competing nations a huge boost, since they do not recognise our software patents. I know darned well my life at a tiny startup would be easier without software patents. These beasts cost us $10K-$20K each (which small companies can't afford), and all they do
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I can see it now.
You can't use patent X unless you agree to license Y. No application that enforces DRM. No use by the military. Insert your favorite political cause here.
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