Re: [tlug] [OT] Say _no_ to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Jean-Christophe Helary writes:

 > http://www.orpheusweb.co.uk/john.rose/ttech.html

I don't see the connection.  I can see that there's a threat to
biodiversity and that there is a definite resemblance of the role of
Monsanto in this to the pusher distributing heroin to kids in the
schoolyard, but the technology itself is clearly patent-worthy (if
anything is), and is not a matter of "patenting genes".

This is quite different from the situation in software where the
theoretical argument against IP in software is completely muddled with
the abysmal implementation by the USPTO among others.  It's sort of
like pointing to Microsoft Windows and saying "a secure efficient OS
can't exist".  Now, we have counterexamples of good OSes, but nobody
has yet really tried to create a "good" software patent system so we
have no idea just how good or bad it would be.

While I don't much like monopolies, the whole story of hybridization
strikes me as a homily on how little damage they're actually able to
do.  The Green Revolution has actually worked.  It had *many*
*serious* problems, but in fact the doomsayers of the 1960s, who
predicted that the world would run out of food by 1975 unless ZPG was
achieved by then were totally wrong: the population is almost twice
the claimed limit, and clearly could double again without running out
of food.  The fact that this achievement made a large profit is to be
applauded, I should think.

Sure, far more of the surplus could be distributed to the poor.  That
would be nice.  And the fact that there are people starving though the
food is there is shameful.  But you know what?  Even the Grameen Bank
is starting to fail to scale, and it's way smaller on any measure than
any of the companies we all love to hate.  Monsanto scales, and the
world is fed.  As the former Minister of Defense said, "shiyou ga
nai."  At least to the best of *my* knowledge ....

Free software has a chance to be different.  That's one of the reasons
I find it so fascinating.

 > Here the "free" code is the DNA of plants. The analogy is borderline,  
 > I know but that is the closest I can find.

Well, you might try Proudhon ("Property is theft") or Marx (the
process of "primitive accumulation" in the early stages of
capitalism).  I don't agree they're applicable :-), but that seems
like the place to start for a counterbalancing analysis of software
IP.