Re: WebObjects become opensource ?
Re: WebObjects become opensource ?
- Subject: Re: WebObjects become opensource ?
- From: Chuck Hill <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:26:35 -0700
On Sep 15, 2009, at 2:02 PM, Mike Schrag wrote:
If you were well-versed in ANY field, wouldn't your scenario equally
be true? If I'm a mechanic and you come up with a new engine design,
once I see what you've done and how you've done it, it's probably
pretty easy for me to make one ... I have no idea about Pharma, but
I presume that once a drug is released, it's probably pretty easy
for generics to replicate it. It does seem there should be some
consideration for that, and the patent system is the current answer
to that. Why should software be in some other category?
Also, re: MP3/JPEG (and things like RSA fall into this category too)
-- It's grunt work to do it once someone already has defined a spec,
or figured it out and you cheat off their paper, but it's no small
feat to come up with it in the first place. This is sort of the
point, it seems to me. Stealing the idea is always easier than
making it first, so we have patents to give incentive to people to
bother coming up with it first. There's obviously a failure window
in the patent system for the guy who truly independently develops
it, but I don't really see a way to close that gap -- i think it's a
weakness you have accept for the greater good of the imperfect system.
Mind you, I'm not even saying I'm for them at the moment -- I'm
pretty well on the fence about it. I'm certainly not for the way
they are currently implemented/granted in the US, but a bad
implementation doesn't necessarily make the entire concept wrong.
Certainly in the US, the current implementation of the system (both
in granting and in enforcement/litigation) greatly favors the big guy.
I think the badly flawed and badly abused US implementation makes this
issue cloudier than it should be. So far, I agree with Mike that the
idea of software patents can be a good thing, if properly
implemented. I think the nature of software makes proper
implementation harder than with physical inventions as it is harder
for non-developers to grasp what is being patented and whether it
deserves protection or not.
Chuck
Out of curiosity, are you against traditional patents? I still can't
reconcile a meaningful difference -- i recognize there probably IS a
difference, but I just haven't been able to come up with a lucid
explanation of the difference.
ms
On Sep 15, 2009, at 4:42 PM, Anjo Krank wrote:
Sorry, can't resist :) From what I understand is that your supreme
court basically said that everything man-made under the sun should
be patentable. Recently even they finally came to their sense and
said it had to have some physical component.
The reason (as I understand it) is that patents are *not* for the
benefit of the holders. They are to get holders to disclose on
their stuff and to get a limited monopoly in return. This is to
*promote* innovation so that others can simply look at the patent
and build from that.
I find it pretty hard to imagine a concept in IT that is hard
enough for someone well-versed in the field (not IT, the special
application) that you can't come up with too once you see it can be
done. The reason being it's pretty cheap. Look at MP3 for example,
or JPEG. Once you got the idea that you *can* compress images or
sounds with some math crap, it's only grunt-work to do it. LAME
took about a year from a crappy patch-set to the final product.
Cheers, Anjo
Am 15.09.2009 um 22:19 schrieb Mike Schrag:
That example is tricky. Data structures can be considered
mathematical concepts
sorry .. lazy example .. i kind of intended that in the "objecty"
sense --- "data structure + algorithm". as i understand it, you
would not (at least in the US) be able to patent a data structure
(and technically not JUST an algorithm either). i believe you
patent the use of a particular data structure + algorithm to solve
a SPECIFIC problem.
ms
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