Steven Schveighoffer Wrote:

> patents exist to give an *incentive* to give away trade secrets that would otherwise die with the inventor.  The idea is, if you patent something, you enjoy a period of monopoly, where you can profit from the fruits of your invention.

I think, this can work for software the same way.

> Add that to the fact that software patents are *rarely* beneficial to the community.

Does the community want benefits at the expense of the inventor?

> They are mostly used as
> weapons to stifle innovation from others.  In essence, software patents
> have had an *opposite* effect on the industry compared to something like
> building cars.

Let's look at the H264 technology. Would it exist in the first place if its creators had no chance to patent it? Everyone benefit from H264. They charge corporations for patent application, corporations sell quality tools - everyone benefit. MPEG LA (patent holder) said end users won't be charged for viewing H264 video and they allow patent application without fees by free GPL-licensed x264 encoder and free LGPL-licensed libavcodec decoder - opensource benefits, end users benefit. I have a vague impression GPL was a requirement: MPEG LA would not allow patent application by boost-licensed code: that would mean total loss of income. No one would benefit from boost license in this case. GPL *wins* everything here with regards to benefit for open source, benefit for users and benefit for professional commercial users.

> >> 3. It is a very slippery slope to go down.  Software is a purely *abstract* thing, it's not a machine.
> >
> > Software is a machine: concrete thing doing concrete job. Patent doesn't protect the machine itself, it protects concrete design work put into it. Design is a high-profile work, a good design has a good chance to be more expensive than the actual implementation. So it's perfectly valid to claim ownership for a design work and charge fees for it.
> 
> And why wouldn't you be able to do this without patents?  Again, copyright already covers software.  Plenty of software companies have large amounts of IP and are successful without having any software patents.

I'm afraid, it's useless to copyright a design: implementation is not a copy so you can't charge for it.

> >> It can be produced en mass with near-zero cost.
> >
> > Dead software is seen as unusable. So - no, to produce software you need continuous maintenance and development which is as expensive as any other labor.
> 
> What I mean is, with a traditional machine, there is a cost to recreating the machine.  Such manufacturing requires up-front investment that can possibly outweigh the cost of implementing the design.  Patents protect the entity putting their product out there from having a larger company who can throw money around beat you using your idea.

The same is for software world. A program may require quite a large investment before it could be made usable. Let's consider D: who would get quality implementation first - Digital Mars or Microsoft? If DM doesn't patent D, it will sell *nothing*. Even if DM manages to get some market share, it won't survive competition and eventually lose. IE lost its market share because there was more effort put into Firefox than IE.

> Maintenance costs are not part of distribution, they are part of development.  Of course maintenance is required, but maintenance does not hinder you from making a profit like manufacturing ramp-up does.

Needs for investments may be slightly different, but effectively there's no difference: software project needs continuous investment of resources or it dies.

> However, working software can be written by one guy in his apartment in a couple weeks.  He's not going to do patent searches when it costs him just 2 weeks time to create the software.  Here, the patent system is just getting in the way of innovation.  It's having the opposite effect by instilling fear in anyone writing software that some patent-holding company is going to squash him out of business.

I suppose trivial patents are also a problem for physical industry as the wheel patent shows.

> When was the last time you did anything with a patented software technology except *avoid it like the plague*?

I would like to avoid H264 but unfortunately I can't.

> >> 5. The patent office does *NOT UNDERSTAND* software, so they are more
> >> apt
> >> to grant trivial patents (e.g. one-click).
> >
> > http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-australia.html
> 
> I don't get your argument there, that Australia has a lousy patent system?  That Australian "innovation patents" are indefensible? How is this relevant?

They understand software as good as physical technologies.

"Kagamin" <spam@here.lot> wrote in message news:j892gn$2b5k$1@digitalmars.com...
> Steven Schveighoffer Wrote:
>
>> So you're saying the code you write as FOSS should cost something
>> (i.e.
>> you want something in return)?  Interesting...
>
> It's just two paradigms: if you choose freedom, GPL ensures and protects the freedom. You can also provide your efforts to corporations - why not? - proprietary licenses and patents are *adequate* means to do it.

Surely you meant "communism" rather than "freedom", otherwise the above is non-sensical.

"Timon Gehr" <timon.gehr@gmx.ch> wrote in message news:j88jq8$1brb$1@digitalmars.com...

>[Free software] is software that respects the freedom of its end users.

Software is inanimate and non-human and cannot "respect" anything. The
mire of propaganda that spews from "entitled" GPL fanboys is astounding.

"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:op.v3ylgbgaeav7ka@localhost.localdomain...
> On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:04:18 -0400, Chante <udontspamme@never.will.u> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:op.v3u2chz6eav7ka@localhost.localdomain...
>>> On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:39:54 -0400, Kagamin <spam@here.lot> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Chante Wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> While I haven't thought it through (and maybe don't have the
>>>>> knowledge  to
>>>>> do so), elimination of software patents was something I had in mind
>>>>> as a
>>>>> potential cure for the current state of affairs (not a cure for
>>>>> viral
>>>>> source code though). Of course, noting that first-to-file is now
>>>>> the
>>>>> thing, it appears (to me) that Big Software Corp and Big Government
>>>>> are
>>>>> on one side, humanity on the other.
>>>>
>>>> Patents are seen to exist for humanity. Elimination of patents is
>>>> equivalent to elimination of intellectual property. You're not going
>>>> to  succeed on that. But GPL3 at least protects you from patent
>>>> claims
>>>> from  the author, so you'd better use it. You're afraid of others,
>>>> but
>>>> GPL can  also protect *your* code.
>>>
>>> Patents are to foster innovation.  Software innovation needs no
>>> patent
>>> system to foster it.  Nobody writes a piece of software because they
>>> were  able to get a patent for it.
>>>
>>> I feel software patents are a completely different entity than
>>> material
>>> patents.  For several reasons:
>>>
>>> 1. Software is already well-covered by copyright.
>>
>> Software, though, is not like a book: it's not just text. There is inherent design, architecture, engineering represented by source code.
>
> Books require design, sometimes elaborate design, and engineering of sorts.  What an author puts into writing a book is not unlike what an entity puts into writing software.

With a book, the text is the end product. With software, the source code is an intermediate representation, or production machine rather than the end product. Source code is like a printing press for a specific book. It is not like the book. (These analogies are presented more for analysis, rather than in direct or opposing response).

>
>>> 2. With few exceptions, the lifetime of utility of a piece of
>>> software
>>> is  well below the lifetime of a patent (currently 17 years).
>>> 3. It is a very slippery slope to go down.  Software is a purely
>>> *abstract* thing, it's not a machine.
>>
>> Maybe literally "abstract", but those flow charts, layers,
>> boxes-and-arrows actually become realized (rendered, if you will) by
>> the
>> source code. The text really isn't important. The "abstraction" is.
>
> Software is not unlike math.

I disagree. While one can use software to perform math, that does not make software "like math".

> It achieves something based on an abstract  concept of the world.  It has practical uses.

That is too vague/general. Lacks the required amount of substance to be useful.

> But math is not patentable.

Given that I don't accept your stance that "software is like math", that is then irrelevant.

>>
>>> It can be produced en mass with  near-zero cost.  It can be expressed
>>> via source code, which is *not* a  piece of software.  There is a
>>> very
>>> good reason things like music, art,  and written works are not
>>> patentable.
>>
>> Music and art don't "do" anything except titilate the senses.
>> Software,
>> OTOH, does do things of practical utility.
>
> Music and art are both different from software and the same.  They are different because there are no rules for creating valid music or art. I  could bang on the wall randomly with a pipe, and try to sell that as music  (and ironically, I might succeed).  But they are the same because writing  music and creating art that *is good* is a difficult thing that requires  careful thought, planning, and execution.
>

Too vague and non-substantive to be used in support of any position on the issue of software patents.

"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:op.v3yn2di8eav7ka@localhost.localdomain...
> On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:37:02 -0400, Kagamin <spam@here.lot> wrote:
>
>> Steven Schveighoffer Wrote:
>>
>>> 1. Software is already well-covered by copyright.
>>
>> You can't write software out of thin air. Let's suppose ranges increase  usability of a collections library. Can you write a collections library  without knowing about ranges concept? That's what patents are for.
>
> patents exist to give an *incentive* to give away trade secrets that would  otherwise die with the inventor.

That last part is, of course, a fallacy. It implies that the trade secrets would not be carried forward beyond the inventor's life by companies, progeny or some other means.

>The idea is, if you patent something,  you enjoy a period of monopoly, where you can profit from the fruits of  your invention.

The defined period though may or may not be enough to recover the costs of invention. Who's to put a price on someone's work of invention which cost him pretty much all of his adult life? The patent office? I think not! And while some may not like that another's goals may be to "milk the invention for all it's worth for as long as possible", that's just "tough titties". Others may desire that scenario to give some "power" to those who can do good with it rather than build war machines and make war.

> In return, you bestow upon the world the secret behind  your idea.

That is only one possible scenario, perhaps "the moral high ground" perspective, but not even so, as shown above. It looks more (to me) like someone wanting to "get something for nothing". Instead of playing people like lottery tickets, those types should... buy lottery tickets|

> This allows people to build on your idea in the future, instead of nobody ever being able to discover what your invention was.


The people in the company surrounding the product don't do that? Isn't software like children? An inventor may indeed have goals and purposes envisioned for his inventions. Why bother bringing babies home from the hospital? Just leave them there for whatever, right? Why not make all things a giant cesspool of cluster-fucking? Everything, all of the time, 100% entitlement. (As the corporate middle managers yell in unison, "Yeah man, that!").

Now, about those proprietary "rights" you think you have to your children... are you sure someone else hasn't filed a patent for them before you?

On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:28:21 -0400, Kagamin <spam@here.lot> wrote:

> Steven Schveighoffer Wrote:
>
>> patents exist to give an *incentive* to give away trade secrets that would
>> otherwise die with the inventor.  The idea is, if you patent something,
>> you enjoy a period of monopoly, where you can profit from the fruits of
>> your invention.
>
> I think, this can work for software the same way.

You can profit from the fruits of your invention *without* patents.  You can with machines as well, but software has the added bonus that copyright protects your IP.

But it's much harder to reverse engineer how someone built a machine than it is to reverse engineer how software is built.  The secrets can truly die with the inventor, as opposed to software -- regardless of the final binary format, it's always possible to get back to source code.  And thanks to copyright law, that source code is a derivative work, you can't use it unless you license it from the originator.

>> Add that to the fact that software
>> patents are *rarely* beneficial to the community.
>
> Does the community want benefits at the expense of the inventor?

The *point* of patents is to benefit the community.  The price society pays to the inventor is granting a monopoly.  I'd argue that a 17-year monopoly on software technology and algorithms is too high a price to pay for knowing a "secret" you can't use until it's very obsolete.  17 years ago was 1994, Windows 3.1 was all the rage.  Do you really think society is now going to benefit from using the patented technologies from then?  When the LZW patent expired, it was a mere amusing footnote, as we had all moved on to better compression technologies long before then.

>> They are mostly used as
>> weapons to stifle innovation from others.  In essence, software patents
>> have had an *opposite* effect on the industry compared to something like
>> building cars.
>
> Let's look at the H264 technology. Would it exist in the first place if its creators had no chance to patent it?

What if is not a fair game.  It's impossible for me to say because I did not invent it.  But I believe most people who come up with ideas for software are not in it for the patents.  Even in the company I worked for which got several software patents, they were an afterthought -- Software is invented to *solve a problem* which needs to be solved whether it can be patented or not.  Did the inventors of H.264 do it for the patents?  Maybe.  But I firmly believe if software wasn't patentable, we would have equivalent video streams today (maybe even better than what we have), because it *solves a problem*.

> Everyone benefit from H264. They charge corporations for patent application, corporations sell quality tools - everyone benefit. MPEG LA (patent holder) said end users won't be charged for viewing H264 video and they allow patent application without fees by free GPL-licensed x264 encoder and free LGPL-licensed libavcodec decoder - opensource benefits, end users benefit. I have a vague impression GPL was a requirement: MPEG LA would not allow patent application by boost-licensed code: that would mean total loss of income. No one would benefit from boost license in this case. GPL *wins* everything here with regards to benefit for open source, benefit for users and benefit for professional commercial users.

This is a strawman -- GPL is not required by patent law to be licensed at no cost for software patents.  The inventors of H.264 have chosen this route, so good for them.  But it is not a benefit of GPL or a strike against boost, it's just what they chose.

>> >> 3. It is a very slippery slope to go down.  Software is a purely
>> >> *abstract* thing, it's not a machine.
>> >
>> > Software is a machine: concrete thing doing concrete job. Patent  
>> doesn't
>> > protect the machine itself, it protects concrete design work put into
>> > it. Design is a high-profile work, a good design has a good chance to  
>> be
>> > more expensive than the actual implementation. So it's perfectly valid
>> > to claim ownership for a design work and charge fees for it.
>>
>> And why wouldn't you be able to do this without patents?  Again, copyright
>> already covers software.  Plenty of software companies have large amounts
>> of IP and are successful without having any software patents.
>
> I'm afraid, it's useless to copyright a design: implementation is not a copy so you can't charge for it.

You cannot copyright a design.  You can copyright implementation.  And if you don't make the design public, people have to spend vast amounts of time and effort to just *figure out* your design, then they have to write their own implementation (which is not cheap).  Meanwhile, you have improved your design to something better and already sold thousands or millions of copies, sucking up all the market share.

Even if you share your design, people still have to create their implementation, which can take years.

>> >> It can be produced en mass with near-zero cost.
>> >
>> > Dead software is seen as unusable. So - no, to produce software you  
>> need
>> > continuous maintenance and development which is as expensive as any
>> > other labor.
>>
>> What I mean is, with a traditional machine, there is a cost to recreating
>> the machine.  Such manufacturing requires up-front investment that can
>> possibly outweigh the cost of implementing the design.  Patents protect
>> the entity putting their product out there from having a larger company
>> who can throw money around beat you using your idea.
>
> The same is for software world. A program may require quite a large investment before it could be made usable. Let's consider D: who would get quality implementation first - Digital Mars or Microsoft? If DM doesn't patent D, it will sell *nothing*.

I think if Microsoft decided to implement D, Walter would be the first one jumping for joy :)

> Even if DM manages to get some market share, it won't survive competition and eventually lose. IE lost its market share because there was more effort put into Firefox than IE.

DMC is still being sold AFAIK.  There is always a market for cheaper software, or a more agile software company.

One might pay for DMD if one gets specific support.  For example, if I wanted to buy a D compiler for ARM, would Microsoft be willing to implement it for a fee?  Would they even respond to my request?

>> Maintenance costs are not part of distribution, they are part of
>> development.  Of course maintenance is required, but maintenance does not
>> hinder you from making a profit like manufacturing ramp-up does.
>
> Needs for investments may be slightly different, but effectively there's no difference: software project needs continuous investment of resources or it dies.

But why is that?  Shouldn't patents fix that "problem?" Because with a patent, you have essentially a monopoly.  How can anyone compete with your poorly maintained software?

The real answer is, patents *don't help* with maintenance costs.  You can't lallygag around not innovating on your software because someone else will find a way to do the same thing without your patents.  All software patents do is create a barrier to innovation, and act as weapons against other patent-holding firms.

Note, Google agrees with me: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-07-26/internet/29815846_1_nortel-patents-software-patents-patent-suits

>> However, working software can be written by one guy in his apartment in a
>> couple weeks.  He's not going to do patent searches when it costs him just
>> 2 weeks time to create the software.  Here, the patent system is just
>> getting in the way of innovation.  It's having the opposite effect by
>> instilling fear in anyone writing software that some patent-holding
>> company is going to squash him out of business.
>
> I suppose trivial patents are also a problem for physical industry as the wheel patent shows.

The wheel patent is a test of a poorly designed patent system (as the article indicates).  It is not representative of most patent systems.

See this quote from your linked article:

===========
Keogh, who is a freelance patent lawyer himself, says that he applied for the patent in order to test this new class of new patents. He says that innovation patents are not examined in detail by the Australian patent office.

"The patent office would be required to issue a patent for everything," he told The Age newspaper. "All they're doing is putting a rubber stamp on it."
===========

Note that this is not a trivial granted patent because of a flawed review process -- THERE IS NO REVIEW PROCESS, ALL PATENTS ARE GRANTED!  This is not a fair comparison of well-established patent systems.

>
>> When was the last time you did anything with a patented software
>> technology except *avoid it like the plague*?
>
> I would like to avoid H264 but unfortunately I can't.

Right, and if software patents did not exist, the web would have standardized on some other video codec, which would be freely available by now.

>> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-australia.html
>>
>> I don't get your argument there, that Australia has a lousy patent
>> system?  That Australian "innovation patents" are indefensible? How is
>> this relevant?
>
> They understand software as good as physical technologies.

Again, not a valid comparison.

-STeve

On 10/26/2011 10:36 PM, Chante wrote:
> "Timon Gehr"<timon.gehr@gmx.ch>  wrote in message
> news:j88jq8$1brb$1@digitalmars.com...
>
>> [Free software] is software that respects the freedom of its end users.
>
> Software is inanimate and non-human and cannot "respect" anything. The
> mire of propaganda that spews from "entitled" GPL fanboys is astounding.
>
>

Right, the developers respect the freedom of the end users of their program. Let that be the definition of software who respects the freedom of its end users and we are fine.

But that is just nitpicking in lack of a better argument. (and the implied personal attack cannot make up for it.)

"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:op.v3yn2di8eav7ka@localhost.localdomain...

> the fact that software  patents are *rarely* beneficial to the community.

"the fact"? Citation to scientific studies required.

"THE community". You mean "the entitled" set who couldn't create anything on their own if their life depended on it? Those who can't program themselves out of a paper bag? Those who want everything, right now and don't want to work or invest the time to learn? The cognitively lazy? What-is/whom-are this "THE community" group?

> They are mostly used as  weapons to stifle innovation from others.

So to not "give, Give, GIVE!" to these people: http://www.aspeneducation.com/article-entitlement.html, is "to stifle"? Are you one of them trying to propagandishly conceiving scenario like a child trying to "get their way"? Are you are tantrumming because no one will give you everything you want and won't wait on you hand and foot?

> In essence, software patents  have had an *opposite* effect on the industry compared to something like  building cars.  In other words, there's no need for patents to allow  software ideas to be seen by others, it's possible to extract the ideas  from the code.

That sounds like a threat. Of course, those with the ability to create and who have invested their time in learning, rather than "copying someone else's homework" do not see the copycat followers as threats at all, but rather as wastes of life.

On 10/26/2011 11:38 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:28:21 -0400, Kagamin <spam@here.lot> wrote:
>
>> Steven Schveighoffer Wrote:
>>
>>> patents exist to give an *incentive* to give away trade secrets that
>>> would
>>> otherwise die with the inventor. The idea is, if you patent something,
>>> you enjoy a period of monopoly, where you can profit from the fruits of
>>> your invention.
>>
>> I think, this can work for software the same way.
>
> You can profit from the fruits of your invention *without* patents. You
> can with machines as well, but software has the added bonus that
> copyright protects your IP.
>
> But it's much harder to reverse engineer how someone built a machine
> than it is to reverse engineer how software is built.

If it is, for example, a remote web service, reverse engineering is difficult.

On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:55:34 -0400, Chante <udontspamme@never.will.u> wrote:

>
> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:op.v3ylgbgaeav7ka@localhost.localdomain...
>> On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:04:18 -0400, Chante <udontspamme@never.will.u>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>> news:op.v3u2chz6eav7ka@localhost.localdomain...
>>>> On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:39:54 -0400, Kagamin <spam@here.lot> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Chante Wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> While I haven't thought it through (and maybe don't have the
>>>>>> knowledge  to
>>>>>> do so), elimination of software patents was something I had in mind
>>>>>> as a
>>>>>> potential cure for the current state of affairs (not a cure for
>>>>>> viral
>>>>>> source code though). Of course, noting that first-to-file is now
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> thing, it appears (to me) that Big Software Corp and Big Government
>>>>>> are
>>>>>> on one side, humanity on the other.
>>>>>
>>>>> Patents are seen to exist for humanity. Elimination of patents is
>>>>> equivalent to elimination of intellectual property. You're not going
>>>>> to  succeed on that. But GPL3 at least protects you from patent
>>>>> claims
>>>>> from  the author, so you'd better use it. You're afraid of others,
>>>>> but
>>>>> GPL can  also protect *your* code.
>>>>
>>>> Patents are to foster innovation.  Software innovation needs no
>>>> patent
>>>> system to foster it.  Nobody writes a piece of software because they
>>>> were  able to get a patent for it.
>>>>
>>>> I feel software patents are a completely different entity than
>>>> material
>>>> patents.  For several reasons:
>>>>
>>>> 1. Software is already well-covered by copyright.
>>>
>>> Software, though, is not like a book: it's not just text. There is
>>> inherent design, architecture, engineering represented by source code.
>>
>> Books require design, sometimes elaborate design, and engineering of
>> sorts.  What an author puts into writing a book is not unlike what an
>> entity puts into writing software.
>
> With a book, the text is the end product. With software, the source code
> is an intermediate representation, or production machine rather than the
> end product. Source code is like a printing press for a specific book. It
> is not like the book. (These analogies are presented more for analysis,
> rather than in direct or opposing response).

compiled software is copyrighted, it's a derivative translation of the original source code.  When speaking of copyrighted software, the binary code and the source used to build it are one and the same.

>>>> 2. With few exceptions, the lifetime of utility of a piece of
>>>> software
>>>> is  well below the lifetime of a patent (currently 17 years).
>>>> 3. It is a very slippery slope to go down.  Software is a purely
>>>> *abstract* thing, it's not a machine.
>>>
>>> Maybe literally "abstract", but those flow charts, layers,
>>> boxes-and-arrows actually become realized (rendered, if you will) by
>>> the
>>> source code. The text really isn't important. The "abstraction" is.
>>
>> Software is not unlike math.
>
> I disagree. While one can use software to perform math, that does not
> make software "like math".

Then the rest of this argument is moot, and I respectfully will end debate so as to not waste any more of our time.

-Steve