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diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/danger-of-software-patents.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/danger-of-software-patents.html index 2b95d27..e891742 100644 --- a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/danger-of-software-patents.html +++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/danger-of-software-patents.html @@ -1,15 +1,26 @@ <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> -<!-- Parent-Version: 1.77 --> +<!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 --> +<!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html --> +<!--#set var="TAGS" value="speeches" --> +<!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" --> <title>The Danger of Software Patents - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/danger-of-software-patents.translist" --> <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> - +<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" --> +<!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--> +<!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" --> +<div class="article reduced-width"> <h2>The Danger of Software Patents</h2> -<p>by <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a></p> -<p>This is the transcript of a talk presented by Richard M. Stallman -on 8 October 2009 at Victoria University of Wellington.</p> +<address class="byline">by <a href="https://www.stallman.org/">Richard +Stallman</a></address> + +<div class="infobox"> +<p>This is the transcript of a talk presented on 8 October 2009 at +Victoria University of Wellington.</p> +</div> +<hr class="thin" /> <dl> <dt>SF:</dt> @@ -25,7 +36,7 @@ at this moment because she's doing what we do in universities which is teach.</p> <p>So it's my pleasure to welcome you to the lecture “The Danger -of Software Patents”. Richard Stallman has a suite of lectures +of Software Patents.” Richard Stallman has a suite of lectures that he offers, and after discussion with Brenda, I chose this topic precisely because for the first real time in New Zealand history, we have a somewhat prolonged, but important, debate about patent law @@ -247,10 +258,10 @@ the wrong number in it. I looked in it again, and sure enough it said, started to read it to see if it was indeed the wrong patent. I read the claims, and sure enough it was the natural order recalculation patent, but it didn't use those terms. It didn't use the term -“spreadsheet”. In fact, what the patent prohibited was +“spreadsheet.” In fact, what the patent prohibited was dozens of different ways of implementing topological sort—all the ways they could think of. But I don't think it used the term -“topological sort”.</p> +“topological sort.”</p> <p>So if you were writing a spreadsheet and you tried to find relevant patents by searching, you might have found a lot of patents. But you @@ -371,7 +382,7 @@ by avoiding the two patents.</p> <p>Now there is GIF format, for images. That uses the LZW algorithm also. It didn't take long for people to define another image format, called PNG, which stands for “PNG's Not -GIF”. I think it uses the gzip algorithm. And we +GIF.” I think it uses the gzip algorithm. And we started saying to people, “Don't use GIF format, it's dangerous. Switch to PNG.” And the users said, “Well, maybe some day, but the browsers don't implement it @@ -448,8 +459,10 @@ that patent is not to implement that feature. For instance, the users of the word processor Xywrite once got a downgrade in the mail, which removed a feature. The feature was that you could define a list of abbreviations. For instance, if you define “exp” as an -abbreviation for “experiment”, then if you type “exp-space“ or “exp-comma”, the “exp” would change automatically to -“experiment”.</p> +abbreviation for “experiment,” then if you type +“exp-space“ or “exp-comma,” the +“exp” would change automatically to +“experiment.”</p> <p>Then somebody who had a patent on this feature threatened them, and they concluded that the only thing they could do was to take the @@ -488,7 +501,7 @@ threatened by a patent holder who wanted to make his business shut down. He sent me the patent. Claim 1 was something like “a network with a multiplicity of computers, in which each computer supports a multiplicity of games, and allows a multiplicity of game -sessions at the same time”.</p> +sessions at the same time.”</p> <p>Now, I'm sure in the 1980s there was a university that set up a room with a network of workstations, and each workstation had some @@ -599,7 +612,7 @@ brilliant designer of whatever, who's been working for years by himself in his attic coming up with a better way to do whatever it is. And now that it's ready, he wants to start a business and mass-produce this thing; and because his idea is so good his company will -inevitably succeed— except for one thing: the big companies will +inevitably succeed—except for one thing: the big companies will compete with him and take all his market the away. And because of this, his business will almost certainly fail, and then he will starve.</p> @@ -734,7 +747,7 @@ circumstances, so some of the time, none of them is possible; and when that happens, your project is dead.</p> <p>But lawyers in most countries tell us, “Don't try to find the -patents in advance”, and the reason is that the penalty for +patents in advance,” and the reason is that the penalty for infringement is bigger if you knew about the patent. So what they tell you is “Keep your eyes shut. Don't try to find out about the patents, just go blindly taking your design decisions, and @@ -1237,7 +1250,7 @@ a central processing unit, a memory, input/output facilities, instruction-fetching facilities, and means to perform this particular computation. In effect they've written explicitly into the patent all the parts of an ordinary computer, and then they say, “Well, -this is a physical system which we would like to patent”, but +this is a physical system which we would like to patent,” but really it's just patenting certain software on a computer. There are many subterfuges that they've used.</p> @@ -1277,7 +1290,7 @@ patent.</dd> patents are to all software developers. I don't like what Microsoft does, but that's an issue that's irrelevant for this purpose. It's not good that somebody can sue a software developer and say “I -won't let you distribute such software”.</dd> +won't let you distribute such software.”</dd> <dt>Q.</dt> <dd>Obviously we live in an imperfect world, and in some cases we run @@ -1353,7 +1366,7 @@ course there were nowhere near as many computer users.</p> <p>How many computer users were there in 1982, even in the US? It was a small fraction of the public. But there were software developers. -They weren't saying, “We desperately want patents”. They +They weren't saying, “We desperately want patents.” They weren't getting sued for patent infringement after they developed their programs. But there is a bit of [economic] research that I saw that apparently software patents resulted not in an increase in @@ -1400,15 +1413,16 @@ you Richard.</dd> </dl> -<hr /> -<blockquote id="fsfs"><p>This speech is published -in <a href="http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/"><cite>Free +<hr class="no-display" /> +<div class="edu-note c"><p id="fsfs">This speech is published in +<a href="https://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/"><cite>Free Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays of Richard -M. Stallman</cite></a>.</p></blockquote> +M. Stallman</cite></a>.</p></div> +</div> </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> -<div id="footer"> +<div id="footer" role="contentinfo"> <div class="unprintable"> <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to @@ -1426,13 +1440,13 @@ to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p> to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org"> <web-translators@gnu.org></a>.</p> - <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of + <p>For information on coordinating and contributing translations of our web pages, see <a href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations README</a>. --> Please see the <a href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations -README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations +README</a> for information on coordinating and contributing translations of this article.</p> </div> @@ -1453,7 +1467,7 @@ of this article.</p> There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. --> -<p>Copyright © 2009, 2010, 2014, 2020 Richard Stallman</p> +<p>Copyright © 2009, 2021 Richard Stallman</p> <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative @@ -1463,10 +1477,10 @@ Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p> <p class="unprintable">Updated: <!-- timestamp start --> -$Date: 2020/10/26 13:08:00 $ +$Date: 2021/09/11 09:37:22 $ <!-- timestamp end --> </p> </div> -</div> +</div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include --> </body> </html> |