Re: tlug: RMS and Amazon...

["Scott M. Stone" <sstone@example.com>]

On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Manuel M. T. Chakravarty wrote:

> > Have you done any on the stuff you've written,
> > Mr. Professional Programmer Scott, Sir?  If not, your
> > professional ethics are, ah, questionable.  Can't afford
> > it?  Tough---what happens if an infringement is proved,
> > and some of your customers have to take down their systems
> > or pay extortionary license fees?
> 
> I am actually always a bit surprised when a skilled software
> engineer is ignorant of the problem, while at the some time
> is becomes more difficult with each day to implement any
> kind of sizeable software without infringing on some patent.

well, some of us software types don't like reading patent law... we leave
that to managers.  That would be true for me and people like me who are
the kind that will probably never be in business for ourselves :)

> 
> Software engineers rejoicing in current software patents is
> a bit like allowing somebody to plant a bomb in your head
> and handing over the trigger.
> 

as long as they give the trigger to ME for my own bomb, that's ok.

I wasn't really 'rejoicing'.  I just believe in corporate rights... I'm a
big Ayn Rand fan.

--------------------------
Scott M. Stone, CCNA <sstone@example.com>
UNIX Systems and Network Engineer
Taos - The SysAdmin Company 

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