tlug: Patents again

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

>>>>> "Darren" == Darren Cook <darren@example.com> writes:

    Darren> Apologies to those who thought this thread was off-topic,
    Darren> but the current Wired has this quote (p.69) by Andy Grove,
    Darren> Chair of Intel, where he gives an excellent argument
    Darren> against patents (though maybe not intentionally):

How many times has the GUI been invented?

But who made it popular?  A monopolist backed up by patents,
copyrights, and in general a rather closed architecture:  Apple.

And who put it on every desk, and fuck me if not on half the
cellphones in Japan?  A near-monopolist backed up by patents,
copyrights, AND actionable behavior in restraint of trade:
Microsoft.

The wonderfully commercially successful Red Hat Linux 6.1 can't even
install KDE (the sys admin's GUI of choice) on 1/3 of the boxen at the
University of Sheffield, according to said sysadmin.  Multiple
simultaneous invention is not all you would hope it to be.

Simultaneous invention is not the issue (and it wouldn't have been
simultaneous, anyway, and the lags might be long enough to matter---
eg, the NSA never did patent those strengthenings of DES that were
reinvented 20 years later...).

Spurring innovation, ie, putting inventions into practice, and the
marketing muscle to spread innovations to the masses, are what patents
are about.

_Software_ patents still are devilspawn in my moderately informed
opinion, but please, let's get the "against" arguments right.

It matters.

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