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| Authored by: rcsteiner on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 07:11 PM EDT |
Perhaps they will realize the true extent of the issues involved when a large
part of the software industry leaves the US for greener pastures.
In this day and age, it's pretty easy to toss development centers anywhere in
the world. Heck, I'm regularly collaborating with people on six continents now.
---
-Rich Steiner >>>---> Mableton, GA USA
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 08:14 PM EDT |
Well. Please consider that you don't have the power to
control these people's opinions.* So, your options are
either
- loudly insisting that they are wrong.
- loudly trying to remove them from power.
- trying to persuade them.
- agreeing to disagree and considering suggestions that they
might actually adopt.
My (possibly perfectly unreasonable) opinion is that the
last option is more likely to succeed in my lifetime. There
is also some merit to the notion that if you repeat someone
often enough, in enough forums, people will start to believe
it whether or not it is correct - so the constant repetition
might be somewhat useful, I guess.
Bear in mind that even perfectly reasonable and well-
intentioned technical people are capable in believing that
software patents are useful. The notion that this is a
settled consensus is a product of Groklaw's selection
effects.
eg...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Goetz
OTOH, the notion that the current state in software patents
is highly suboptimal is pretty much universally agreed upon.
It is perfectly reasonable to believe that software patents
are here to stay in some form and to devote energy to some
combination of:
'narrowing of scope'
'procedural changes'
'actual significant changes to modernize patent law'
will probably be more productive than beating a dead horse.
But, I could be wrong.
Also, I'm neither a lawyer nor a programmer (well, a bit - I
dabble with a few languages) and my judgement is that the
real solutions to this problem aren't going to come either
from law or from logical arguments. I will guess that
they'll come (if they do) from legislation, bureaucratic
adjustments, and/or economic arguments.
First off - the law has had the necessary tools for a while
to limit patent damage - there are structural reasons that
they aren't applied properly. Those will be hard to change.
And, besides, law requires a trial - by which point a small
business or FOSS project has already lost.
Second off - the logical arguments just aren't important.
Reasonable people are perfectly capable of believing that
software is patentable and given that precedent allows
software patents - the current status is likely to persist
with modest changes. (Hopefully with gradual narrowing of
scope, allowed patents...)
Legislation can obviously solve the patent issue.
Bureaucratic changes could encourage the USPTO to actually
apply firmer reviews.
Economic arguments might, in theory, help justify change.
OTOH, much of economics is shoddy, so I'm not too hopeful.
My big worry is that none of that will immunize FOSS and I
don't quite see how that can be done.
My hope is that interface, interoperability, and obvious
patents will be disallowed and that some means of avoiding
having the defendent eat trial costs will be found.
--Erwin
*I will never convince my wife that pink is not the ideal
color. Sigh. Or that black rose wallpaper is not an ideal
kitchen decoration. But, we can agree to disagree and
repaint the living room instead.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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