Notch Patents
From the translator: this post on the Notch blog is a continuation of the Friday story with a patent lawsuit . On Saturday, Twitter Notch has already expressed a sharply negative attitude to software patents, and today has set out his position on the blog in more detail.
Imagine that you are Neo, and you are the first person on Earth who came up with the idea to write a novel. That is something like a story, but more authentic. And you are very proud of your invention.
Suddenly Trinity runs up to you, grabs one of your freshly printed copies of your novel and runs away. You don’t like it, because you paid for printing this copy, and you want your expenses to be reimbursed. Therefore, you loudly outraged by her act. She committed theft .
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Trinity gets a little pissed at first, and then asks you to borrow one copy to read. You allow, but she puts this copy in a copy machine and prints a few to herself. You don’t like it, because you want only you to print copies of your novel to sell them, so you are outraged again. Trinity has violated your copyright .
Trinity leaves in tears and sits down to write his own novel. You don’t like it, because it’s your first idea to write a longer story, and you want to receive income from all the novels that anyone has ever written, and you are outraged again. Trinity violated your patent .
I have nothing against the concept of ownership, so I am against theft. Society will fall apart into pieces if people cannot own property.
I generally don’t mind people selling things they did. Therefore, I am against copyright infringement. However, I do not think that it is as bad as theft, and I’m not sure that society benefits from the fact that people of certain professions can get money for work done once (for example, a computer game), then others have to do their work every time they want to be paid (as is the case with a hairdresser or a lawyer). But in general, yes, it is good to be able to sell the result of your work.
But no one will ever be able to convince me that it is useful for society not to share ideas. Ideas are free. With the help of ideas, we improve things around us, and society only benefits from this. For ideas to work, they need to be shared.
Standard argument in favor of patents - inventors will stop inventing if they cannot protect their ideas. The problem is that patent law also applies if you come to the patented invention independently. If someone else can easily repeat the exact same idea, then on what basis does the one who came up with it first claim a reward?
Yes, there are areas in which research costs a lot of money, and the benefits of innovation for humanity are very high. Personally, I think that such research should be funded by the state (as in the case of CERN and NASA), and without any patents, and not the way things are now with medicine. But I can understand the point of view of patent advocates in such cases.
But trivial patents, such as software, are counterproductive (they slow down technological progress), vicious (this is the worship of the “golden calf”) and ruinous (they force you to spend time and money on senseless court proceedings).
If you own software patents - you should be ashamed.
Imagine that you are Neo, and you are the first person on Earth who came up with the idea to write a novel. That is something like a story, but more authentic. And you are very proud of your invention.Suddenly Trinity runs up to you, grabs one of your freshly printed copies of your novel and runs away. You don’t like it, because you paid for printing this copy, and you want your expenses to be reimbursed. Therefore, you loudly outraged by her act. She committed theft .
')
Trinity gets a little pissed at first, and then asks you to borrow one copy to read. You allow, but she puts this copy in a copy machine and prints a few to herself. You don’t like it, because you want only you to print copies of your novel to sell them, so you are outraged again. Trinity has violated your copyright .
Trinity leaves in tears and sits down to write his own novel. You don’t like it, because it’s your first idea to write a longer story, and you want to receive income from all the novels that anyone has ever written, and you are outraged again. Trinity violated your patent .
I have nothing against the concept of ownership, so I am against theft. Society will fall apart into pieces if people cannot own property.
I generally don’t mind people selling things they did. Therefore, I am against copyright infringement. However, I do not think that it is as bad as theft, and I’m not sure that society benefits from the fact that people of certain professions can get money for work done once (for example, a computer game), then others have to do their work every time they want to be paid (as is the case with a hairdresser or a lawyer). But in general, yes, it is good to be able to sell the result of your work.
But no one will ever be able to convince me that it is useful for society not to share ideas. Ideas are free. With the help of ideas, we improve things around us, and society only benefits from this. For ideas to work, they need to be shared.
Standard argument in favor of patents - inventors will stop inventing if they cannot protect their ideas. The problem is that patent law also applies if you come to the patented invention independently. If someone else can easily repeat the exact same idea, then on what basis does the one who came up with it first claim a reward?
Yes, there are areas in which research costs a lot of money, and the benefits of innovation for humanity are very high. Personally, I think that such research should be funded by the state (as in the case of CERN and NASA), and without any patents, and not the way things are now with medicine. But I can understand the point of view of patent advocates in such cases.
But trivial patents, such as software, are counterproductive (they slow down technological progress), vicious (this is the worship of the “golden calf”) and ruinous (they force you to spend time and money on senseless court proceedings).
If you own software patents - you should be ashamed.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/148243/
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