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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Rick Timmis wrote: > > software developers, whilst this mechanism has not been vastly effective > in preventing software piracy. I think this is a red herring as far as this discussion goes. In the Western industrial nations software copyright has been largely respected by corporate users, and is enforced by industry bodies. Commercial software piracy I don't think is big business around Europe, as in people knocking out CD's for sale like they do in Singapore say. Whether corporate users respect copyright once they have bought a copy is harder to assess, although Microsoft seem to be doing okay on the proceeds so let us assume things aren't that bad. > Clearly corporate software developers need mechanisms by which they can > protect there R&D investments and ensure that their is a level playing > field in the market place. Equally the Open Source community must be > considered in this complex equation. Both the OSS community and > corporate developers offer to facilitate users and business alike, with > their software and systems. Protecting the OSS community will ensure > that corporate developers continue to develop software that offers added > value that warrants the proprietory licenses and associated cost, and > will ensure that global business has greater choice in selecting > software appropriate to its requirements. I think the Hawkings reference is kind of odd, perhaps drop it, expand why the benefits of the Internet result from free software, as suggested else where. *** Experience suggests best to leave proof reading type changes till we are happy with the structure of the argument, group proof reading is great, but do it last! *** RMS would ask what's all this "Open Source software", he is a "Free Software" man.... Is there any mileage in asking if a compelling case has been made that software patents would be good for the economy (bit like the 5 tests for the euro). My guess is they won't, and I suspect you can quickly Google up the relevant references. The argument could be read as suggesting we want a right to cheap derivatives, but patents cut right at the heart of data formats, making it impossible to release software for interoperability, even though this right was enshrined in European law already. Examples would be MP3, and GIF (although Unisys eventually dropped their patent rights, realising that the bad Karma of enforcing some patents, especialy i you haven't been actively pursuing it, is worse for you than the benefits of the money generated). Quite a lot of free software is innovative, think web browsers, web servers, MTA's. Indeed almost all major Internet protocols owe their success to "free" implementations. If everyone had to pay CERN 30USD for a web browser or server who woud have bought the first one? Okay excluding particle physicists after CERNs research data ;-) This goes back to the arguments for "open systems", you can't have cheap interoperable open systems if components of the hierarchy require licences. The best you can hope for with patents is that if they become part of a standard or format that the patent rights are waved, which I think is basically what the W3C came to. It may well be that software patents become in effect useless as a result of the need to build software cathedrals, where the licencing rules become too painful. But I'd rather not take that risk, and slow down progress in IT, to find out if that happens or not. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQE/CFYnGFXfHI9FVgYRAr8cAKCyogWMe7s+Kz/IMEikn7ebWyB+XQCcCDLT TICUOwqLC7SWvMSd6N1zc+g= =z9G1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.