🚀 go-pugleaf

There was a recent submission to "comp.sources.unix" of a couple of
public-domain, unpatented compression programs, called "yabba" and
"whap".  The first paragraph from the package is included below; it has
been ported to *many* systems already.

What I suggest is this (although I don't know if this is feasible or
even possible): FSF or LPF should go and slap a "patent" on behalf of
all programmers on this new, unpatented algorithm, and "copyleft" the
patent, thus making it available forever (or at least a long time :^).
Then we can stop worrying about Unisys's patent claim and get back to
the real work (Emacs 19, GNU Kernel, etc.).  It's too bad there's no
such thing as a public "eminent domain" against patents on longtime
publicly available implementations of patented algorithms.

In my opinion, fighting these "patent wars" is like placing sandbags in
the middle of a flooding river: you may displace some of the water, but
most of it just goes right around.  The only, long term solution is to
remove the cause or desire behind the patent -- greed and/or a desire
for recognition.  To remove this latter symptom, we must give
recognition and social stature to people who are creative or otherwise
culturally productive.  As an example, the Japanese hold in high regard
their elder artists and artisans, as National Living Treasures (NLT).

In our culture, we seem to place highest regard, not in our artists and
our artisans, but in people who amass wealth.  Some of you may take
exception by pointing out movie stars as "artists"; I claim that while
some of them are, indeed, good actors, most movies are productions of a
great number of people, while most of us pay attention, and hold in high
regard, only the visible representative of the movie, the leading actors
and actresses.  When was the last time you paid attention to the person
who is our National Poet Laureate?  How many of you have read any of the
Norton Anthologies?  Painted a picture?  Made a sand castle?  Played an
instrument?  Developed an algorithm?  Wrote a program for fun?

To install a basic respect towards creativity, we must begin at home
with our children, and in the schools: we must not only teach, we must
practise what we preach.  Our children must grow up thinking that people
should be admired, not because they have money, but because they are
able to express themselves using any media: paint, wood, computers,
music, dance, mime, words, >>computers<<, and so on. 

And, we must believe and teach that the expression is worthless without
the observer, the listener, the other person.  That is, the benefit of
expression is in the the giving and the receiving.  What good is a
patent on an expression if it interferes with that process.  We must
develop a disdain for this interference, as well as a disdain for greed.

The only way our children will do this if they see their parents, and
their parents friends, and their peers, and their teachers all acting by
the same beliefs.

We must guide our children to the arts, to using computers, to reading
books, to drawing pictures, to dancing, to creative athletics, and the
guiding can never falter because of disinterest.  We, ourselves, must
truly appreciate the artist.

Oh yeah: we also really have to do something about the prediliction of
lawyers, which is to litigate.  Another example: Japan has one of the
lowest numbers of lawyers per capita of all the economic powers.  When
two Japanese have a potential "legal" difficulty with each other, they
prefer to use their "go between", the person who introduced them to each
other.  What can we do?  We can follow the national trend to arbitrate,
rather than litigate.

Some of you may say: "Yeah, that's all fine and good, but we have to
fight the patent wars, now!"  I agree: we need to do both.  We need to
fight the immediate war tactically, using the tools at hand; we also
need to fight the long-term war strategically, using the best tools for
significant cultural change: our children.  This doesn't mean that I'm
trying to turn my children into minions against the patent war; it means
I'm trying to instill values and beliefs which I feel will best suit not
only my child, but the culture I would like to see develop around her.
A child is a vessel: if you fill it up with love, understanding, faith
in humanity, knowledge of our frailties, and the determination to do
things right, you will get out of him/her all you put in.

The cynic in me doesn't really think that by acting locally in this way,
I, myself, will make a dent against the patent wars.  My children might,
someday, make something happen.  Yours, too.

Alan Stebbens        <aks@hub.ucsb.edu>             (805) 893-3221
     Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering (CCSE)
          University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
           3111 Engineering I, Santa Barbara, CA 93106