Linux does not have
any patents at all. However, there has been a study that says that the Linux kernel (not counting any application that is isn any distro!) potentially infringes on 283 patents!
IBM has said it would not use it\'s patents against Linux, but that is not really a binding agreement.
Citing
this ZDnet article:
It is a small but significant measure for a company with major efforts to patent its research, then license those patents. Still, the vast majority of IBM\'s 10,000 software patents in the United States aren\'t being shared so freely.
The move follows that of Linux seller Red Hat, a comparatively small company that objects to software patents but allows unfettered use of its own smaller portfolio in open-source software. And Novell, the second-largest Linux seller, has vowed to use its own patent portfolio to deter and counter legal attacks against open-source software.
So there is a small bit of protection.
Anyway: Kiva, the thing is that:
Patents are meant to protect the inventor because traditionally there is a lot of expense involved in an invention: you need expensive equipment at least. Software, however, can be developed perfectly well with a common household appliance that everyone possesses: a generic-purpose computer. Even if you purchase a commercial development package, you can stay very well below 3000$ in total.
Therefore, there is no investment in software to be protected!
Additionally, if I write a program, I don\'t need to find some law of nature or a creative way to use one: all I do is to translate my intentions on what I want the computer to do into a language that can be understood by the computer:
This is, in fact, the
exact same as translating a recipe for cookies from italian to russian.
Therefore, patenting software is patenting pure intructions. Instructions are ideas, because a written set of instructions
is a formulated idea. The program you have written is copyrighted, for free and automatically, so noone can simply use or copy it without your consent!
Thus, what does a patent increase in protection? Exactly, it is supposed to
keep others from making competing products that do the same job! You patent software, you patent the idea on doing the particular thing, so noone else can ever write anything similar!
Also, we are not talking about really good ideas, or revolutionary concepts like a new compression algorithm: algorithms are mathematics, and as such have been exempt from patenting for a good reason: by disallowing use of algorithms, you disallow the progress of mathematics, because noone will be able to build upon it!
This is exactly what is being done with software: all software is based on things that were \"invented\" before, and improved upon them. By tying up these ideas, there cannot be any progress in software development anymore!
Bill Gates himself said:
Originally stated by Bill Gates in 1991
If people understood how patents would be granted when most of todays ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a standstill today.
Last but not least: doesn\'t it strike you as odd that
- big corporations are
in favor of software patents
- small companies and individual programmers are
against software patents
- software patents are argued by the promoters (i.e., big companies) to help the small companies and individuals
How can that be? Why do the ones who are supposedly benefitting not want it? Why do the ones who are supposedly losing out want it?
- scientists are against software patents
- lawyers say that programmers
should not look at software patents at all because if they infringe the patent, they will have to pay thrice
- promoters of patents say that patents encourage spreading of the knowledge
- patents are deliberately worded unclear, broadly and not concrete and are not comprehensible by anyone except lawyers
How can that be? How can something promote exchange of knowledge if it cannot be understood by those it supposedly is made to communicate anything to? How can it exchange knowledge if the ones who defend it on these grounds themselves say that it should not be used by those it is supposed to help? How can non-scientists insist on that something helps science if scientists say it doesn\'t?
So obviously, One party is lying, and, considering that a patent doesn\'t just cost ~50000$ to get, but also costs
several millions to actually enforce, the party with the actual means to pay all these expanses are extremely suspicious of lying. Would they really push hard for legislation that harms them?
As for your claim that none of us who oppose patents have never invented anything: have
you? How about the programmers who are supposeldy inventors? Why are they not in favor of software patents?
Also, Microsoft has said it wants to get 3000 patents each year! Do you honestly believe that
anyone, regardless how big the company, can invent that many true, real inventions per year?
Edit:
For a glimpse on what methods are being used by the patent-promoters, see
this. Note that the EU council is made up of the patent offices\' heads, and the European Parliament is the only instance that is voted in by the population, and thus the only one that has any democratic legitimation.
The council tried to pass the Software Patent directive on a meeting of
agriculture and fishery, several times! Do you
still not smell something fishy there?
