Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The argument I (and others) are having with DB is not that there should be IP protection -- I wholeheartedly agree, but whether this should be by copyright or patent.

    DB is using the 'wiring' argument to call software a device in spite of it's lack of physical implementation. I argue for it being copyrightable information. No one (except some libertarian free software people) debates the copyrightable nature of software. It's the patent that's at issue.

    While the computer is meaningless without software, a printing press is meaningless without books to print. That does not make a book a device.
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    • Posted by ewv 9 years, 3 months ago
      A computer is already a device whether it is programmed or not.

      It's not clear that software in general should be either patented or copyrighted as opposed to a third class better recognizing it for what it is. The laws have been stretched to include it based on some similarities in both cases, and some protection recognizing private property rights is better than none, but it's far from a clean solution. But property rights of all kinds are under assault.
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      • Posted by khalling 9 years, 3 months ago
        "It's not clear that software in general should be either patented or copyrighted " It is very clear. That you cannot see that, adds to my disappointment. Start from the foundation-invention-and work from there. Every time there is a disruptive period in invention people claim that should not count as invention. Every time in the history of modern patent system. It affects real lives and real inventions. You only aid the enemy
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        • Posted by ewv 9 years, 3 months ago
          It has nothing to do with a disruptive period in invention as an excuse to deny property rights. You seem to have misunderstood. Software property rights should be protected in accordance with its specific nature as software, which is not a machine and not art, but the current approach in law is better than nothing.
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          • Posted by dbhalling 9 years, 3 months ago
            Software is used to WIRE a computer to become a specific circuit. A circuit is patentable.
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            • Posted by ewv 9 years, 3 months ago
              As long as you insist on what is at best a bad metaphor for the relation between hardware and software it isn't possible to discuss it further. Software does not wire a computer to become a different circuit. You're undermining your own arguments for IP
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              • Posted by khalling 9 years, 3 months ago
                what in the sam hill is the software DOING? in order to work, it sets switches. Switches re-wire. to call it something else is beyond absurd. How many patent applications on software do you think Dale writes?
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                • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 3 months ago
                  Switches don't rewire. They temporarily change the flow. When you want Dale to turn on the living room lights do you say, "Dale would you rewire the living room so that the lights are on?" And if you got a clapper and could turn the lights on by clapping, does your hands become "a device for rewiring the living room"?

                  And, in any case software doesn't change switches hardware does based on reading the software. The ability to act is built into the hardware not the software. Software is just information.

                  And yes I've seen some of the patents that Dale writes. The fact that he expresses obvious computer algorithms as a device to get the patent office to accept them doesn't mean that they are a device or that they are even unique.

                  His ring buffer patent is pretty obvious. And this is a good example. I found it and his other patents on his web page when we first had this argument and reviewed it. He has taken it off of his web page and I can't find it by searching the internet since I don't know the number.

                  So, if I was working on a problem and needed a ring buffer solution I would probably come up with a very similar one and would not be able to find his patent even if I looked. And I would never think of looking.

                  As I've said, writing software is more like writing a book. The number of times that a software designed creates algorithms to solve the various problems he faces is similar to how often you come up with new events or interactions to move your plot along. It's a daily process.

                  The designer frequently creates new code even if existing code, in the public domain, is available because the amount of material is too great to effectively search -- and this is material specifically organized from a software point of view, not that written in the 'this is a device' language of patents with the various claims.

                  I have read many books and hundreds of articles on software design. Not once, and I really mean, NOT ONCE has anyone ever suggested that the programmer search the patent libraries for a solution to a technical problem. Patent's are not expanding usable knowledge in our domain.
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