🚀 go-pugleaf

sps@email.sp.unisys.com (Steven P. Skabrat) writes:

>the majority of the traffic here is leftist claptrap propaganda about
>how the sky will fall down if we allow software patents.

Skabrat is mistaken.  Both sides are being heard in comp.patents.
The end of this message contains statistics about recent comp.patents postings.
The summary statistics are as follows.

  number of postings
  with this position	     position
         6		against software patents
         6		for software patents
         2		can't tell whether it's for or against
        14		on some other subject


Skabrat is seriously confused if he equates opposition to software
patents with ``leftist claptrap propaganda''.  Much of the opposition
is based on realistic fears by small software developers like myself
that software patents will be used by big companies to stifle
competition, and will thus discourage software innovation.  It's hardly
``leftist'' to prefer the free market to the current software patent mess.

>thats what the United States copyright and patent systems are based on.
>Its worked for over 200 years and look where our country is
>technologically because of it.

On the contrary, software was largely exempt from the scope of patents
in our country until a very few years ago.  This worked for over 30 years,
and look where our country is technologically because of it.  Why are
we screwing around with a system that was working?


Here is the list of comp.patents postings that I promised.
This lists covers all the postings in our current news database.
The `ID' column lists that posting's Message-ID,
e.g. the first listing is for <4605@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>.
The `position' column is interpreted as follows:

     -  against software patents
     0  on some other subject
     +  for software patents
     ?	can't tell whether it's for or against

Some of the `position' column entries are judgment calls,
but if you don't believe me you can go back and make the judgments yourself.


ID   position   author
4605    0   Barry Margolin
4606    -   Ernest Hua
4607    0   Jim Adcock
4608    -   Dan Bernstein
4609    0   Michael T. Doughney
4610    0   Graham Toal
4611    0   Rob Warnock
4612    -   Brendan Scott
4614    0   Jason W Solinsky
4615    0   Terry Ritter
4616    0   Jon Webb
4617    +   Carl Oppedahl
4618    -   Kurt Cockrm
4619    ?   Alex Lopez-Ortiz
4623    +   Peter Treloar
4626    0   Jim Adcock
4627    +   Kim Letkeman
4628    0   Gregory Aharonian
4629    +   Carl Oppedahl
4630    -   Dan Bernstein
4643    0   Peter Treloar
4651    0   Terry Ritter
4652    ?   Arthur Rubin
4653    +   Rob Warnock
4654    0   Terry Ritter
4655    0   Carl Oppedahl
4656    +   Steven P. Skabrat