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As a programmer in a modest way, but a user of rather than a contributor to free software, may I say it's always seemed to me that software is built by the same process as science or scholarship: by making use of other people's advances and building on them, or as someone (probably Isaac Newton) put it, standing on the shoulders of giants. Those who try to restrict the use others make of what they have developed, discovered or created are simply obstructing progress. Copyright was invented to protect works of (fine) art. Its use to protect programs is a bit accidental, for a program is applied art and more akin to a machine than to a painting or a novel. Copyright doesn't frustrate the public benefit of a work of art, because in spite of copyright the public can enjoy it and learn from it. That goes for scientific works too: the authors' copyright does not prevent the world from reading them and learning. However copyright in a program (if used to keep the program in the sole custody of its author(s), rather than to keep it out of anyone's sole control, as GPL does) _does_ prevent other programmers from building on it, because the program is a machine, rather than a means of communicating ideas. Patents were invented for engineers at a time when developing a new machine was slow and required heavy investment of money. It was right in those circumstances that the investor should be able to recoup what he'd spent and a not excessive profit, _provided_ that in the end he didn't frustrate the public benefit that would eventually follow from his discovery. That's wny a patent is strictly limited in time and requires a total revelation of the new invention. It is also why there is serious debate about limiting the profits from some patents, e.g. those on drugs that are needed in poor countries. Am I right in thinking that patents are undesirable in software precisely because the investment can be so _small_ in relation to the public utility of the product ? (What bothers me about that formulation is that it seems to belittle what programmers do, and mock at their toil and concentration, which I do know a bit about. Still, it seems obvious that Linus didn't spend millions but did make a kernel of enormous utility, and that sort of productivity just isn't available in traditional industry.) -- John Palmer Preston near Weymouth, Dorset, England e-mail: johnp@xxxxxxxxxx (plain text preferred) website: http://www.palmyra.uklinux.net/ -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.