🚀 go-pugleaf

From the info posted in the various messages on the nest, I gather
that the exploitation of patent and copyright laws by software firms
is becoming more and more ridiculous with each passing day.

Upon some consideration of the situation as it currently stand, I came
with an equally ridiculous (seemingly)proposal to help us do away with
patents. My proposal is to encourage as many companies and individuals
as possible to sue any company that they think is infringing rather
seriously on their patents/copyrights.

"Huh! How's that again?", you say.

I know that sounds ridiculous (as promised), but look at it this way.
When you consider the rapid nature of innovations in the software
field, the proportion of infringments suits in the software arena
would tend to be much greater than in other fields, which in turn
ensures much greater publicit about  the situation. It would also
cause a number of the big companies to lose money if their opponents
wins the cases. If they win, since they are pretty big monoliths,
people would be more inclined to dislike them for trying to create a
monopoly. (Have you noticed that an uninformed person is more like to
take the side of the underdog in any dispute as long as it not
completely obvious that the underdog is infact wrong.) People don't
bother about isolated instances off any problem. But when a problem
becomes widespread, then more people as well as the official (Ha!)
bodies that have authority over these matters begin to take notice and
eventually would attempt to correct the situation. Ofcourse such a
course is not guarenteed to produce a result that we think is right.
But it would invite more scrutiny and with enough pressure from users,
that scrutiny may eventually produce a somewhat acceptable result, if
not the right one.

You folks still believe the proposal is ridiculous? You don't believe
that human nature would work the way that I think it will work?
Well! I can't say I blame you. I still think I am being ridiculous. :-)

--
        -Satish	K. Chittamuru
	chittamu@cs.umass.edu		Software Development Lab.
	chittamu@umass.bitnet		Dept. of Computer & Info. Sciences
					University of Massachusetts
					Amherst, MA 01002
===
God is real, unless cast to an integer.