On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Wakko Warner wrote:
> I am also against the patenting of ideas and such. Actually, i'm against
> patents in general. To me it seems that "I make product and patent it so
> you can't make it" causes a monopoly on that one product (microsoft
> anyone?). I'm not up on history so I don't know what went on before
> publication.
I believe the original idea was to give a small inventor time to tool
up, produce a product, and get some market share before letting
competition in. Otherwise a large company might be able to muscle in
"unfairly".
When you invent something physical, you tend to invent what might be
called "proof of concept", which can take some time to develop to the
stage of being a manufacturable product.
By contrast, once software has been demonstrated to work, it *is* the
product. "Manufacturing" is trivial. The timescale is completely
different, as Sheldon has pointed out. I agree with his point on that.
I don't have a huge problem with protection for large software packages
- though copyright seems to do that job anyway. It's the patenting of
techniques that is probably the biggest worry. Stuff that you invent off
the top of your head and which is "obvious"...
> Who'll take your place in exim? You do excelent work with exim Philip.
That is a discussion I am planning to start when I get back from
Australia next January.
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
Get the Exim 4 book: http://www.uit.co.uk/exim-book
