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diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/software-patents.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/software-patents.html index 1d54d01..e3836bd 100644 --- a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/software-patents.html +++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/software-patents.html @@ -1,27 +1,32 @@ <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> -<!-- Parent-Version: 1.90 --> +<!-- 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>Software Patents - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/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!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--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>Software patents — Obstacles to software development</h2> -<p>by <strong>Richard Stallman</strong></p> +<address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address> -<p> -<i> -This is the transcription of a talk presented by Richard M. Stallman on +<div class="infobox"> +<p>This is the transcription of a talk presented by Richard M. Stallman on March 25, 2002, at the University of Cambridge -<a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/">Computer Laboratory</a>, -organized by the <a href="http://www.fipr.org/">Foundation for Information -Policy Research</a>. Transcript and -<a href="http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/#patent-cambridge-2002-03-25"> -audio recording</a> by Nicholas Hill. HTML editing and links by Markus -Kuhn. The original version is hosted at -<a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/stallman-patents.html"> -http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/stallman-patents.html</a>. -</i> -</p> - +<a href="https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/">Computer Laboratory</a>, +organized by the <a href="https://www.fipr.org/">Foundation for Information +Policy Research</a>.</p> +<p>Transcript (<a +href="https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/stallman-patents.html">original +version</a>) and <a +href="//audio-video.gnu.org/audio/#patent-cambridge-2002-03-25">audio +recording</a> by Nicholas Hill. HTML editing and links by Markus Kuhn.</p> +</div> +<hr class="thin" /> <p> You might have been familiar with my work on @@ -47,8 +52,8 @@ dangerous obstacle to all software development. <p> You may have heard people using a misleading term -“<a href="http://www.wipo.org/about-ip/en/">Intellectual -Property</a>”. This term, as you can see, is biased. It makes +“<a href="https://www.wipo.org/about-ip/en/">Intellectual +Property</a>.” This term, as you can see, is biased. It makes an assumption that whatever it is you are talking about, the way to treat it is as a kind of property, which is one among many alternatives. This term “Intellectual Property” @@ -72,7 +77,7 @@ The public policy issues they raise are completely unrelated. So, if you try to think about them by lumping them together, you are guaranteed to come to foolish conclusions. There is literally no sensible intelligent opinion you can have about “Intellectual -Property”. If you want to think clearly, don't lump them +Property.” If you want to think clearly, don't lump them together. Think about copyrights and then think about patents. Learn about copyright law and separately learn about patent law. </p> @@ -132,7 +137,7 @@ it from the point of view of somebody who is hoping to get a patent- what it would be like for you to get a patent. What it would be like for you to be walking down the street with a patent in your pocket so that every so often you can pull it out and point it out at somebody -and say “Give Me Your Money!”. There is a reason for this +and say “Give Me Your Money!” There is a reason for this bias, which is that most of the people who will tell you about this patent system have a stake in it, so they want you like it. </p> @@ -233,16 +238,16 @@ and recommended abolishing it if not for international pressure. One of the things they cited was that engineers don't try reading patents to learn anything, as it is too hard to understand them. They quoted one engineer saying “I can't recognize my own inventions in -patenteese”. +patenteese.” </p> <p> This is not just theoretical. Around 1990, a programmer named -<a href="http://www.atarimagazines.com/startv2n3/hypercard.html">Paul +<a href="https://www.atarimagazines.com/startv2n3/hypercard.html">Paul Heckel</a> sued Apple claiming that Hypercard infringed a couple of his <a href="https://patents.justia.com/patent/4486857">patents</a>. When he first saw Hypercard, he didn't think it had anything to do -with his patent, with his “Inventions”. It didn't look +with his patent, with his “Inventions.” It didn't look similar. When his lawyer told him that you could read the patents as covering part of Hypercard, he decided to attack Apple. <span class="gnun-split"></span>When I had a @@ -257,7 +262,7 @@ to say something like this: “If you do something in here, you are sure to lose, If you do something here, there is a substantial chance of losing, and if you really want to be safe, stay out of this area. And, by the way, there is a sizable element of chance in the -outcome of any law suit”. +outcome of any law suit.” </p> <p> @@ -365,7 +370,7 @@ by chance, I happened to see a copy of the New York Times. It happened to have the weekly patent column in it. I didn't see a copy of the Times more than once every few months. So I looked at it and it said that somebody had got a patent for “Inventing a new -method of compressing data”. +method of compressing data.” <span class="gnun-split"></span>I figured I better take a look at this patent. I got a copy and it turned out to cover the program that we were just a week away from releasing. That program died before it @@ -382,13 +387,13 @@ the job people wanted to do was not to simply compress data but to make an image that people could display with their software, it turned out extremely hard to switch over to a different algorithm. We have not been able to do it in 10 years! Yes, people use the gzip -algorithm to define <a href="http://www.w3.org/Graphics/PNG/">another +algorithm to define <a href="https://www.w3.org/Graphics/PNG/">another image format</a>, once people started getting threatened with law suits for using GIF files. When we started saying to people stop using GIF files, switch over to this, people said “We can't -switch. The browsers don't support the new format yet”. The +switch. The browsers don't support the new format yet.” The browser developers said “We're not in a hurry about this. After -all, nobody is using this file format”. +all, nobody is using this file format.” </p> <p> @@ -439,7 +444,7 @@ consortium can make a format or protocol the de-facto standard. Then, if that format or protocol is patented, that is a real disaster for you. There are even official standards that are restricted by patents. There was a big political uproar last September when the -<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/patent-practice">World Wide Web +<a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/patent-practice/">World Wide Web Consortium</a> was proposing to start adopting standards that were covered by patents. The community objected so they reversed themselves. @@ -542,13 +547,13 @@ their patents. <p> This phenomenon of cross-licensing refutes a common myth, the myth of the starving genius. The myth that patents “protect” the -“small inventor”. Those terms are propaganda terms. You +“small inventor.” Those terms are propaganda terms. You shouldn't use them. The scenario is like this: Suppose there is a brilliant designer of whatever of whatever. Suppose he has spent years starving in the attic designing a new wonderful kind of whatever and now wants to manufacture it and isn't it a shame the big companies are going to go into competition with him, take away all the business -and he'll “starve”. +and he'll “starve.” <span class="gnun-split"></span>I will have to point out that people in high tech fields are not generally working on their own and that ideas don't come in a vacuum, they are based on ideas of others and @@ -568,7 +573,7 @@ one, which parts of your product infringe. If you think you can fight against all of them in court, I will just go back and find some more. So, why don't you cross license with me?” And then this brilliant small inventor says “Well, OK, I'll cross -license”. So he can go back and make these wonderful whatever +license.” So he can go back and make these wonderful whatever it is, but so can IBM. IBM gets access to his patent and gets the right to compete with him, which means that this patent didn't “protect” him at all. The patent system doesn't really do @@ -666,7 +671,7 @@ href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040604051644/http://people.qualcomm.com/karn obvious</a>! Patent bureaucrats have all sorts of excuses to justify ignoring what programmers think. They say “Oh! But you have to consider it in terms of the way things were 10 or 20 years -ago”. Then they discovered that if they talk something to death +ago.” Then they discovered that if they talk something to death then you can eventually lose your bearings. Anything can look unobvious if you tear it apart enough, analyze it enough. You simply lose all standard of obviousness or at least lose the ability to @@ -741,7 +746,7 @@ that can really cause a lot of trouble for you. You might be able to bluff them away by showing them the prior art. It depends upon whether they can get scared off that way or they might think “well, you are just bluffing, we figure you can't really go to -court, you can't afford it so we'll sue you anyway”. +court, you can't afford it so we'll sue you anyway.” </p> <p> @@ -759,7 +764,7 @@ patent gets less and less as the program gets bigger. <p> Now, people used to say to me, “Well, there are patents in other -fields, why should software be exempt?”. Note the bizarre +fields, why should software be exempt?.” Note the bizarre assumption in there that somehow we are all supposed to suffer through the patent system. It is like saying “Some people get cancer. Why should you be exempt?” As I see it, each person who doesn't @@ -786,7 +791,7 @@ be whoever developed the new product. <p> That fits in with the naive idea of the patent system that we have, that if you are designing a new product, you are going to get -“The Patent”. The idea that there is one patent per +“The Patent.” The idea that there is one patent per product and that it covers the idea of that product. In some fields it is closer to being true. In other fields it is further from being true. This is because software packages are usually very big. They @@ -819,7 +824,7 @@ retard progress. <span class="gnun-split"></span>You see, the advocates of software patents say “well yes, there may be problems but more important than any problems, the patents must promote innovation and that is so important -it doesn't matter what problems you cause”. Of course, they +it doesn't matter what problems you cause.” Of course, they don't say that out loud because it is ridiculous but implicitly they want you to believe that as long as it promotes progress, that outweighs any possible cost. But actually, there is no reason to @@ -841,30 +846,30 @@ the challenge is to make physical objects that really work. </p> <p> -If I wanted to put an ‘If’ statement in a -‘While’ statement, I don't have to worry about whether the -‘If’ statement will oscillate at a certain frequency and -rub against the ‘While’ statement and eventually they will +If I wanted to put an <code>if</code> statement in a +<code>while</code> statement, I don't have to worry about whether the +<code>if</code> statement will oscillate at a certain frequency and +rub against the <code>while</code> statement and eventually they will fracture. I don't have to worry whether it will oscillate at a certain higher frequency and induce a signal in the value of some other variable. I don't have to worry about how much current that -‘If’ statement will draw and whether it can dissipate the -heat there inside that while statement. Whether there will be a -voltage drop across the while statement that will make the -‘If’ statement not function. +<code>if</code> statement will draw and whether it can dissipate the +heat there inside that <code>while</code> statement. Whether there will be a +voltage drop across the <code>while</code> statement that will make the +<code>if</code> statement not function. <span class="gnun-split"></span>I don't have to worry that if i run this program in a salt water environment that the salt water -may get in between the ‘If’ statement and the -‘While’ statement and cause corrosion. I don't have to +may get in between the <code>if</code> statement and the +<code>while</code> statement and cause corrosion. I don't have to worry when I refer to the value of a variable whether I am exceeding the fan-out limit by referring to it 20 times. I don't have to worry, when I refer to the variable, how much capacitance it has and whether there has been sufficient time to charge up the value. I don't have to worry when I write the program, about how I am going to physically assemble each copy and whether I can manage to get access to put that -‘If’ statement inside the ‘While’ statement. +<code>if</code> statement inside the <code>while</code> statement. I don't have to worry about how I am going to gain access in case that -‘If’ statement breaks, to remove it and replace it with a +<code>if</code> statement breaks, to remove it and replace it with a new one. </p> @@ -899,7 +904,7 @@ people in their spare time. There is another big saving. If you have designed a physical product, the next thing you have to do is design the factory to make it. To build this factory may cost millions or tens of millions whereas to -make copies of the program, you just have to type ‘copy’. +make copies of the program, you just have to type <kbd>copy</kbd>. The same copy command will copy any program. You want copies on CD then fine. You burn a master CD and send it off to a CD plant. They will use the same equipment which will copy any contents on a CD. You @@ -945,13 +950,13 @@ any patents is going to be harder than writing a good symphony. <span class="gnun-split"></span>When you complain about this, the patent holders would say “Ah Beethoven, you are just bitching because you have no ideas of your -own. All you want to do is rip off our inventions”. Beethoven, +own. All you want to do is rip off our inventions.” Beethoven, as it happens, had a lot of new musical ideas but he had to use a lot of existing musical ideas in order to make recognizable music. In order to make music that listeners could possibly like, that they could recognize as music. Nobody is so brilliant that he can re-invent music and make something that people would want to listen -to. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Boulez">Pierre +to. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Boulez">Pierre Boulez</a> said he would try to do that, but who listens to Pierre Boulez? </p> @@ -1066,9 +1071,9 @@ how the field worked before and how the field worked after. I saw no particular speed up in progress after 1990. There was no political debate in the US, but in Europe there has been a big political debate. Several years ago there was a push to amend the -Munich treaty that established the <a href="http://www.epo.org/"> +Munich treaty that established the <a href="https://www.epo.org/"> European Patent Office</a>. It has a -<a href="http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/html/epc/1973/e/ar52.html"> +<a href="https://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/html/epc/1973/e/ar52.html"> clause saying that software is not patentable</a>. The push was to amend that to start allowing software patents. But the community took notice of this. It was actually free software developers and free @@ -1144,13 +1149,13 @@ The people in the same ministry are also involved in the copyright issue which really has nothing to do with software patents except that it is being handled by the same people. It is a question of interpreting the recent EU copyright directive, a horrible law like -the <a href="http://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Digital Millennium Copyright +the <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US</a>. But there is some latitude for countries to decide how to implement it. The UK is proposing the most draconian possible way of implementing this directive. You could greatly reduce the harm that it does by implementing it properly. The UK wants to maximize the tyrannical effect of this directive. It seems there is a certain -group, the <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20070603164510/http://www.dti.gov.uk/">Department of Trade and +group, the <a href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20070603164510/http://www.dti.gov.uk/">Department of Trade and Industry [archived]</a>, who need to be reined in. It is necessary to put a check on their activities. Stop their creating new forms of power. </p> @@ -1176,15 +1181,16 @@ out of developers and users, then we should reject it. <p> We need to make management aware of what software patents will do to them. Get their support -in <a href="http://www.ffii.org/">fighting against +in <a href="https://ffii.org/">fighting against software patents in Europe</a>. </p> <p> The battle is not over. It still can be won. </p> +<div class="column-limit"></div> -<h3>Footnotes</h3> +<h3 class="footnote">Footnotes</h3> <ol> <li id="f1">There are approximately 300-400 unique parts in an automatic transmission, and a transmission is generally the most @@ -1216,15 +1222,16 @@ The battle is not over. It still can be won. spread.</li> </ol> -<hr /> -<blockquote id="fsfs"><p>This essay 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 essay 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 @@ -1242,13 +1249,13 @@ 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> @@ -1269,7 +1276,7 @@ of this article.</p> There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. --> -<p>Copyright © 2002, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 Richard Stallman.</p> +<p>Copyright © 2002, 2006, 2021 Richard Stallman.</p> <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative @@ -1279,7 +1286,7 @@ Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p> <p class="unprintable">Updated: <!-- timestamp start --> -$Date: 2020/10/26 13:08:00 $ +$Date: 2021/09/20 15:06:49 $ <!-- timestamp end --> </p> </div> |