Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again) To : comp.programming From : Serge Skorokhodov (216716244) Date : Wed Aug 31 2005 01:19 pm Randy Howard wrote: > > Sort of. Are patent protections too lengthy, especially in an > industry that moves this quickly? Probably. Does a patent > prevent you from starting from scratch on a different > solution? Not at all. See also improvement patents. It is a kind of art to formulate patents in a way that covers everything:( > >>> Strange, Office is going XML reportedly, despite still >>> retaining copyright protection on their software. How can >>> that be? >> >> I may be wrong, but you cannot use XML MS Office format >> without permission. > > Yeah right. XML exists so that people can interoperate with > the data. Good luck to MS convincing people not to use plain > text data descriptions. It opens the way for two major tricks that all authorities (either national or corporative) employ most often. I mean double standard and selective law enforcement:( > >>> It is anyone's right to sell a product, without giving >>> away all the implementation details. It is your right as >>> a consumer to refuse to buy it if you don't like it. If >>> you choose to buy it though, then you have no complaint. >> >> Do you remember the MDI in MS Exel but not in Windows SDK >> story? > > Yes. It was a mountain out of a molehill. MS shouldn't have > to give away all their interfaces if they don't want to. It's > one of the few times I come down on their side. Besides, > reverse engineering is such that it is a short-term advantage > at best. I cannot agree with you, sorry. It's not the case if a company provides parts of public infrastructure. An OS for a publicly available and widespread hardware platform is definitely a part of public infrastructure. I support the view that it is not the only option to open the source of proprietary infrastructure software. If a supplier provides API and data formats and puts his business at stake that nothing but this API and data structure is hidden inside, it's OK with me:) Would you trust your life to MS? :-)) >> Don't you think that companies must take some responsibility >> and obligations if their product is of infrastructural >> importance? > > What does that mean? If I come up with some sort algorithm is > so efficient that it makes all existing implementations pale > by comparison, do I have a responsibility to give it away? > This naive view of the world ignores that without protection > of invention, there is little incentive to invest in finding > them in the first place. Apart from those few that will do it > just for the recognition, it would all but dry up. It's not that naive. I would rather call your opinion a naive golden fever psychology;) An algorithm is not an invention. It's a discovery. Can you see the difference? You do not create it, it's always there. You just put your hand into a hole and get out a copy for yourself. But it still stays there. And I don't believe that creative people make discoveries exclusively for money. We have plenty of evidence of the contrary. They just need sponsors:) And it's OK to grant a temporary exclusive right to stimulate sponsors;) But not practically endless right:) >> Farmacutical companies have to after talidomid. > > I fail to see how a bad drug is related to this. Not having a > patent on thalidomide would not have impacted the results as > far as I can tell. I mentioned thalidomide (thanks for correction, I never knew how to write it in Latin) just because the pharmaceutical companies had to take certain responsibility for their production since that story. Civilization is now as vulnerable to bad infrastructural software as human body is for a poorly tested medication. >> Just imagine a car manufacturer that doesn't provide >> technical details on breaks or patent ABS. > > Ok, I'll imagine it, because I own several cars that have ABS > brakes and I was not provided with technical details about > how they implemented them. Furthermore, I don't need such > information, all I need to know is where the brake pedal is > located, which thankfully is exactly where I expected it to > be. The fact that you do not need these details personally doesn't mean that the manufactures doesn't have to provide it for public scrutiny. Anyway, all car manufacturer have to prove compliance with public standards. And it may be pretty expensive for a car manufacturer not to comply. But not for provider of critical mission software:( -- Serge .