🚀 go-pugleaf

In <slrn71jf2t.jqe.treed@freeside.ultraviolet.org> treed@freeside.ultraviolet.org (Tracy R Reed) writes:

>Jason Clifford <jason@dlsl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>No software company HAS a monopoly
>Judge Jackson seems to think so.
>Jackson actually said MS is a monopoly. 
>http://law.miningco.com/library/weekly/bljackson.htm
>"Whether or not the government has correctly divined Microsoft's intentions,
>the probability that Microsoft will not only continue to reinforce its
>operating system monopoly by it licensing practices, but might also acquire yet
>another monopoly in the Internet browsers market, is simply too great to
>tolerate indefinitely until the issue is finally resolved."

There are two or more concepts of monopoly fighting here. I used the
term in a specific sense in that copyright gives someone the monopoly on
the distribution of a specific work. One can also have monopolies in
other areas, whcih can be illegal or place a heavy burden of just
practice on the monopoly holder (Microsoft in this case). Such a
monopoly need not be a legal monopoloy, but only a defacto one. The
copyright monopoly is a legally granted monopoly for a specific time
period. Thereafter that monopoly is withdrawn.  In the case of software,
my contention is that that legal monopoly is far too long, and the
conditions placed on the monopoly holder far too weak. 
The purpose of such monopoly was to foster the growth of the ideas etc,
by giving the monopoly holder the incentive to create and to distribute
those ideas. Unfortunately in software, the companies are tryingto reap
the advantages of such monopoly without the concomitant benefits to
society of revealing those ideas. 
Companies or individuals always have the right to hide their ideas.
Copyright and patents were invented to encourage the disclosure by
granting monopoly power in exchange for the revealing of such ideas.
Software companies are trying to use the monopolies while continuing to
hide the ideas, which I feel society should not tolerate.
Furthermore the copyright time frame on software is far far too long. A
period of say 5 years would be more than enought to allow the person to
recoup the expenses or creating the software, in light of the known
properties of software. The condition that source code be revealed would
bring it into compliance with patent law and with the intention of
copyright law throughout the ages. The current attempt by software
companies to hide behind both trade secret law and copyright law at the
same time should not be tolerated.