bill-gates-and-other-communists.html (8670B)
1 <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> 2 <!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 --> 3 <!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html --> 4 <!--#set var="TAGS" value="essays laws patents" --> 5 <!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" --> 6 <title>Bill Gates and Other Communists 7 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> 8 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/bill-gates-and-other-communists.translist" --> 9 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> 10 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" --> 11 <!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--> 12 <!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" --> 13 <div class="article reduced-width"> 14 <h2>Bill Gates and Other Communists</h2> 15 16 <address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address> 17 18 <p>Bill Gates discussed patents with CNET under the heading of 19 “<a href="/philosophy/not-ipr.html">intellectual 20 property</a>,” a term that covers many disparate 21 laws. He said anyone who won't give blanket support to all these laws 22 is a Communist. Since I'm not a Communist but I have criticized 23 software patents, I got to thinking this calumny might be aimed at 24 me.</p> 25 26 <p>The term “intellectual property” is too broad to have 27 one opinion about. It lumps together copyright law, patent law, and 28 various other laws, whose requirements and effects are entirely 29 different. So anyone using the term “intellectual 30 property” is typically either confused himself, or trying to 31 confuse you. Why does Mr. Gates lump these issues together? Let's 32 study the differences he sets aside.</p> 33 34 <p>Software developers are not up in arms against copyright law, 35 because the developer of a program holds the copyright on the program; 36 as long as the programmers wrote the code themselves, no one else has 37 a copyright on their code. There is no danger that strangers could 38 have a valid case of copyright infringement against them.</p> 39 40 <p>Patents are a different story. Software patents don't cover 41 programs or code; they cover ideas (methods, techniques, features, 42 algorithms, etc.). Developing a large program entails combining 43 thousands of ideas, and even if a few of them are new, the rest must 44 necessarily have come from other sources, such as programs the 45 developer has seen. If each of these ideas could be patented by 46 someone, every large program is likely to infringe hundreds of 47 patents. Developing a large program means laying oneself open to 48 hundreds of potential lawsuits. Software patents are a menace to 49 software developers, and to the users. Since patent law covers 50 execution of the program, the users can also be sued.</p> 51 52 <p>A few fortunate software developers avoid most of the danger. 53 These are the megacorporations, which typically have thousands of 54 patents each, and cross-license with each other. This gives them an 55 advantage over smaller rivals not in a position to do likewise. 56 That's why it is generally the megacorporations that lobby for 57 software patents.</p> 58 59 <p>Today's Microsoft is a megacorporation with thousands of patents. 60 Microsoft said in court that the main competition for MS Windows is 61 “Linux,” meaning the free software GNU/Linux operating 62 system. Leaked internal documents say that Microsoft aims to use 63 software patents to stop the development of GNU/Linux.</p> 64 65 <p>When Mr. Gates started hyping his solution to the problem of spam, 66 I suspected this was a plan to use patents to grab control of the net. 67 Sure enough, in 2004 Microsoft asked the IETF to approve a mail 68 protocol that Microsoft was trying to patent. The patent license 69 policy for this protocol was written to forbid free software entirely. 70 No program supporting this mail protocol could be released as free 71 software—not under the GNU GPL, or the MPL, or the Apache 72 license, or any other.</p> 73 74 <p>The IETF rejected Microsoft's protocol, but Microsoft said it would 75 try to convince major ISPs to use it anyway. Thanks to Mr. Gates, we 76 now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is 77 Communism; it was set up by that famous Communist agent, the US 78 Department of Defense.</p> 79 80 <p>With Microsoft's market clout, it can impose its choice of 81 programming system as a de-facto standard. Microsoft has already 82 patented some .NET implementation methods, raising the concern that 83 millions of users have been shifted to a government-issued Microsoft 84 monopoly.</p> 85 86 <p>But Capitalism means monopoly; at least, Gates-style Capitalism 87 does. People who think that everyone should be free to program, free 88 to write complex software, they are Communists, says Mr. Gates. But 89 these Communists have infiltrated even the Microsoft boardroom. 90 Here's what Bill Gates told Microsoft employees in 1991:</p> 91 92 <blockquote> 93 <p>If people had understood how patents would be granted when 94 most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the 95 industry would be at a complete stand-still today. … A future start-up 96 with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the 97 giants choose to impose.</p> 98 </blockquote> 99 100 <p>Mr. Gates' secret is out now—he too was a 101 “Communist,” he too recognized that software patents were 102 harmful, until Microsoft became one of these giants. Now Microsoft 103 aims to use software patents to impose whatever price it chooses on 104 you and me. And if we object, Mr. Gates will call us 105 “Communists.”</p> 106 107 <p>If you're not afraid of name calling, visit the 108 <a href="https://ffii.org"> Foundation for a Free Information 109 Infrastructure</a>, and join the fight against software patents in 110 Europe. We persuaded the European Parliament once—we even got 111 support from right-wing MEPs—and with your help we will do it 112 again.</p> 113 114 <div class="infobox extra" role="complementary"> 115 <hr /> 116 <p>Originally published in 2005 in <cite><a 117 href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/bill-gates-and-other-communists/"> 118 CNET.com</a></cite>.</p> 119 </div> 120 </div> 121 122 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> 123 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> 124 <div id="footer" role="contentinfo"> 125 <div class="unprintable"> 126 127 <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to 128 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. 129 There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> 130 the FSF. 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For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the 158 document was modified, or published. 159 160 If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too. 161 Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying 162 years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable 163 year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including 164 being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system). 165 166 There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers 167 Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. --> 168 169 <p>Copyright © 2005, 2021, 2022 Richard Stallman</p> 170 171 <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license" 172 href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative 173 Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p> 174 175 <!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" --> 176 177 <p class="unprintable">Updated: 178 <!-- timestamp start --> 179 $Date: 2022/03/05 13:55:25 $ 180 <!-- timestamp end --> 181 </p> 182 </div> 183 </div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include --> 184 </body> 185 </html>