🚀 go-pugleaf

rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:

}I resent the fact that you're accusing people of trying to rip off when all
}they want to do is sit down and write code without having a lawyer look
}over every damned line.  Patent law denies the existence of independent
}invention.  It denies the existence of prior discovery.

}I don't want to rip anybody off.  I want to write my own code without
}having somebody else take a pound of my flesh for the privilege.

But there is virtually no other field of 'invention' where you have
that luxury, why should software be so different?  Just because you
have a lathe in your basement doesn't mean that you can just go off and
sell anything you can manage to machine up.  

As always, there are two possible threads intertwined in a discussion
of software patents, and the anti-patent folk rarely make their
position clear: do you argue that *all* patents are counter-productive
--- that we should unlock America's creativity with a constitutional
amendment to undo patenting?  (That is, by the way, an arguable
position: there _are_ arguments that, overall, patents harm society
more than they help it.)  OR  are you arguing that _software_ patents,
specifically, are a problem... in which case you have to justify pretty
clearly and persuasively why software is so special.

  /Bernie\