Opposition to Broad/Software Patents Grows

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2008-10-03 14:31:06 UTC
Modified: 2008-10-03 14:31:06 UTC

The important fight against software patents has just gained another well-known figure: Bruce Perens.

Perens said in a recent interview that the current system makes it too easy for patent trolls to sue, even when their patents may be bogus.

We need to restore justice to the patent system, and we also need to take a good look at the motivation for software patents, which many economists and others feel do more to hurt innovation than to promote it.

Software patents were not created by Congress, but by courts, at the same time as business method patents. These are often very broadly drawn, and holders use their power to tax real innovation.

Some days ago we wrote about the negative economic effects of patents. Here is an old talk from David Martin, who predicted doom & gloom for the patents 'bubble'.

In the past we also wrote about Apple's role in harming Free software with its patents. This new post contains a reminder of the Apple threat.

The problem is patents. LLVM’s license allows more room for Apple to use software patents than the GCC’s licenses do. And Apple now has the opportunity to maneuver themselves into a place where through those patents they can dominate the software that can be run on their machines. Those bastards!

The sooner the world understands this patent trap it's irreversibly led to, the better. ⬆

Comments

Yuhong Bao

2008-11-01 05:27:21

On Apple and FOSS, that is another off-topic mess altogether dating back to when NeXT decided to develop a Obj-C front-end for GCC for the NeXTStep OS around 1990. On Apple's tying of hardware with software, when I heard that Psystar was going to use that as a challenge to the Apple vs Psystar lawsuit, I posted this blog article: http://yuhong386.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!57E2793D0C53276F!164.entry
Yuhong Bao

2008-11-01 05:28:38

BTW, here is an edit to one of the articles you quoted: "EDIT 8-24-08: Commenter Owen (see below) points out that LLVM’s license actually stipulates better guarantees about the use of patents than i originally thought. It’s quite possible that I misunderstood the discussion on Saturday, or that somebody there was misinformed about the LLVM’s license."

15 Countries Where Yandex is Already Seen to be Bigger Than Microsoft (in Search): Georgia, Syrian Arab Republic, Cyprus, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Belarus, Turkey, and Russia
FSF Has Made It Halfway to Its Target (Funding Goal) a Week Before Christmas Day: $400,000 definitely seems reachable now, especially if they extend the "deadline"
Links 19/12/2024: Astronaut Record and Observer Absorbed: Links for the day
Links 19/12/2024: Seven Dirty Words and Isle Release v0.0.3 (Alpha): Links for the day
Links 19/12/2024: Nurses Besieged by "Apps", More Harms of Social Control Media Illuminated: Links for the day
Links 19/12/2024: Magnitude 7.3 Earthquake and Privacy Camp: Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/12/2024: Port Of Miami Explosion, TurboQOA, Gnus: Links for the day
Fake Articles About 'Linux': Dated yesterday
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 18, 2024: IRC logs for Wednesday, December 18, 2024
[Meme] The Master Churnalist: Speaking of press releases being passed off as "journalism"
Spamnil's TFiR: Still Pretending Press Releases Are 'Articles' (TFiR 'Originals' as Plagiarism or Fluff): Same as last year
Links 18/12/2024: Zakir Hussain Dies, TuneIn Layoffs: Links for the day
Links 18/12/2024: Karate Love and Advent of Code: Links for the day
Windows (or Microsoft) Has Become the "One Percent" (Market Share) in Chad: How long before it falls below 1%?
Arvind Krishna, IBM's CEO, Will Eventually Suck Up to Donald Trump Like His Predecessor Did or the Watson Family Did With Adolf Hitler: Literally Hitler
Being a Geek Need Not Mean Being Sedentary: "In the past 18 months," Berkholz writes, "I’ve lost 75 pounds and gone from completely sedentary to fit, while minimizing the effort to do so (but needing a whole lot of persistence and grit)."
GAFAM Kissing the Ring of the Mafia Don: "resistance" to dictatorship and defenders of democracy?
Slop Spaghetti From the Chef, Second Time Today: Fresh slop ready out the oven!
IBM - Like Microsoft - Lies About the Number of People It's Laying Off (Several Tens of Thousands, Not Counting R.T.O. "Silent" Layoffs and Contractors/Perma-Temps): How many waves of silent layoffs have we seen so far at IBM this year?
Links 18/12/2024: EU Launches Probe Into TikTok (At Last!): Links for the day
Links 18/12/2024: Doha/Qatar Trafficking, Bloat Comfort Zone, and Advent of Code 2024: Links for the day
Saving What's Left of Decent and Independent Journalism on the Web: We increasingly (over time) try to make local copies (hosted on our server) of important documents; it's hard to rely on third parties
[Meme] Microsoft's Latest Marketing Pitch: "Stop Being Poor; buy a new PC with TPMs"
In South Africa, a Very Large Nation, Web Developers Can Already Ignore Microsoft Browsers (Edge Measured Below 3% in 55 Nations): The dumb assumption you must naively test with Microsoft browsers is no longer applicable in a lot of places
Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the Voice of Bill Gates and Satya Nadella: Not hard to see what they've done with the money
Microsoft Boasts That Its (Microsoft-Sponsored) "Open Source AI" Propaganda Got Cited in Media (That's Just What the Money Did): This is a grotesque openwashing campaign
In Many Places Around the World, Perhaps as Expected, Yandex is Nearly Bigger Than Microsoft (Like in Several African Countries): Microsoft may soon fall to "third place" in search
Keeping Productive This Christmas: We've (pre)paid for hosting till almost January 2026 and fully back on the saddle
IBM and Canonical Leave Money on the Table Because Microsoft Pays Them Not to Compete and Instead Market Windows, WSL, Microsoft 'Clown Computing', and TPMs: Where are the regulators?
Other Editors Who Agree "Hey Hi" (AI) is Just Hype But Won't Say So Publicly as It Might Upset Key Sponsors: Some media would gladly participate in a scam to make money
Brian Fagioli's Latest "Linux" Article Appears to be Fake: Another form of plagiarism/ripoff using bots?
IBM (and Red Hat) is a Patent Troll, Still Leveraging Software Patents to Extract Money Out of Other Companies by Suing Them: Basically, when it comes to patents, IBM is demonstrably part of the problem, not the solution
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 17, 2024: IRC logs for Tuesday, December 17, 2024
[Meme] When the People Who Falsely Accuse You of Pedophilia Turn Out to be Projecting: When you attack something or someone using falsehoods, as happens a lot to Richard Stallman (RMS), there's risk that the attacks will backfire, badly
In Some Countries, Such as Greece, Almost 80% of Windows Users Are on Vista 10 and About 85% Need to Move to GNU/Linux for Security Patches: Vista 11 was a failure
[Meme] They Don't Want the Public to Know What "Responsible Encryption" Really Means: They also blame "China" for their own back doors (because China learned how to exploit those)
The Linux Foundation's Certificate Authority (CA) Significantly and Suspiciously Raises the Number of Certificates It Issues (Quantity Increase/Inflation) by Lessening Their Lifetime in the Name of 'Security' (That Barely Makes Sense!): LE made 3 months the "standard" for most, soon to become just 6 days instead of 6 months?
Why I Continue to Believe That at the End Software Freedom Will Win: a short and incomplete list of factors which I believe contribute to the sentiment that we can - and will - win the battles over hearts and minds in the "Tech" realm
Links 17/12/2024: More China Sanctions, GOP Scheming to Prop Up Fentanylware (TikTok): Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/12/2024: The Streisand Effect and Productivity-systems Desiderata: Links for the day
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part X: By Dr. Andy Farnell
Links 17/12/2024: More "Tesla Autopilot" and "Hey Hi" (AI) Blunders: Links for the day
Instead of Promoting GNU/Linux (or Ubuntu) Ahead of Vista 10's EoL Canonical is Marketing Microsoft's Proprietary Software: It's like Canonical employs people who work for Microsoft, not for Canonical
Links 17/12/2024: Many Abuses by Microsoft and War Updates From Ukraine: Links for the day
Content Management Systems (CMS) Bloat/ Static Site Generators (SSG) Trouble: some Web site management stories
DEI Room at fedoraproject.org Pretty Much Dead: We're not against diversity but against its weaponisation by greedy people who do not value diversity at all
The "Latest Technology News" at BetaNews is Slop About Slop: This is at the very top of the "news" (front page) at the moment
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 16, 2024: IRC logs for Monday, December 16, 2024

Opposition to Broad/Software Patents Grows

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts