Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on September 12, 2004 08:20 AM
"everybody will own a patent." -- no, people don't own patents, typically. corporations do, multinational corporations at that. Patents are one means by which a commons (such as free software) is divided up into ownable chunks for purchase or trade by the giants. Bill Gates recognized this early on when he said (paraphrased) that if patent power existed 20 years ago as it does now, the field of computing would have ground to a halt wherein the giants can charge what they will to prevent future competition.
"everybody will have to share their patent with someone else." -- again, no. Patent holders don't have to license their patents to anyone. In fact, a whole new field of business has arisen through patents; parasitical patent holding companies whose main line of work is to sue others for infringing on their patents. They have no plans to make anything based on the patent (nor would that help us if they did), nor do they plan to license the patent (and that would not help us if they did, plenty of patents are licensed in such a way to be incompatible with free software).
"everybody will sue everyone else anyway." -- no, the multinational corporations (like IBM, HP, and Microsoft) will cross-license one another for their patents. smaller businesses who happen to acquire a patent will lose the monopolistic competitive edge patents are built to grant. Cross-licensing keeps the rich rich and builds their empire in such a way as to exclude the poor.
RMS covers all this and more in his talk on the danger of software patents. You can download a transcript or the Ogg Vorbis audio files from audio-video.gnu.org.
In agriculture, patents are even worse because there are lives on the line. In India, for example, Monsanto sells terminator seeds which grow plants that do not grow useful seeds (if they grow seeds at all). Thus, poor Indian farmers must keep buying from Monsanto and many of them go into such debt they commit suicide. Seed activists like Dr. Vandana Shiva tell people to violate the patent, stop doing business with Monsanto and the like, and save seed as farmers have done for centuries. She describes the situation quite well in her talks and in the movie "The Corporation" which I heartily recommend seeing.
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
Read or hear RMS on software patents.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 12, 2004 08:20 AM"everybody will have to share their patent with someone else." -- again, no. Patent holders don't have to license their patents to anyone. In fact, a whole new field of business has arisen through patents; parasitical patent holding companies whose main line of work is to sue others for infringing on their patents. They have no plans to make anything based on the patent (nor would that help us if they did), nor do they plan to license the patent (and that would not help us if they did, plenty of patents are licensed in such a way to be incompatible with free software).
"everybody will sue everyone else anyway." -- no, the multinational corporations (like IBM, HP, and Microsoft) will cross-license one another for their patents. smaller businesses who happen to acquire a patent will lose the monopolistic competitive edge patents are built to grant. Cross-licensing keeps the rich rich and builds their empire in such a way as to exclude the poor.
RMS covers all this and more in his talk on the danger of software patents. You can download a transcript or the Ogg Vorbis audio files from audio-video.gnu.org.
In agriculture, patents are even worse because there are lives on the line. In India, for example, Monsanto sells terminator seeds which grow plants that do not grow useful seeds (if they grow seeds at all). Thus, poor Indian farmers must keep buying from Monsanto and many of them go into such debt they commit suicide. Seed activists like Dr. Vandana Shiva tell people to violate the patent, stop doing business with Monsanto and the like, and save seed as farmers have done for centuries. She describes the situation quite well in her talks and in the movie "The Corporation" which I heartily recommend seeing.
J.B. Nicholson-Owens
#