🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <14833@ulysses.att.com> smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) writes:
>The fundamental question we have to answer is this:  if software
>made, and where many vendors have gone overboard on copy protection
>because of piracy, how are we to encourage publication, if not
>by patents?  The issue of abuse, either statutory (i.e., a 17
>year period, which is too long for software) or in the Patent Office
>(granting dubious patents due to lack of expertise) are, I would
>say, separable questions.


	I'm not quite clear on how you've managed to connect software piracy
with patent protection here. Patent law doesn't protect published software,
copyrights do. Anyone skilled enough to extract an algorithm from object code
would hardly be troubled by copy protection. 
	I think the advantages gained by the publication of patented algorithm's
are vastly outweighed by the locking out of the use of said algorithm for 
a number of years. Especially when such obvious things as backing-store and
x-oring of cursors are granted patents.

	John Henders
	Vancouver,B.C.