Something about patents.

Luis Q. R. · 2004-05-16 03:05:38

One of the reasons because I chose Arch was because it includes some necessary software that major distros don't have because of software patents, like p2p programs, support for propietary codecs like wmv and mov, encripted dvds, dvd ripping and transcoding, etc. You've got the balls. Anyway, aren't you worried about what some corporations could do against you?

Haakon · 2004-05-16 11:25:46

The proprietary codecs have nothing to do with patents, but with distribution rights. I understand they are DLL files taken directly from Windows. As such, they cannot be freely distributed, but some distros and websites do nonetheless.

The DVD encryption/ripping stuff is controversial only because of American DMCA laws which say you are allowed to rip your DVDs, but you're not allowed to break any encryptions or other barriers in the process (which is absolutely necessary). This has nothing to do with either patents or redistribution rights, and those of us living outside the Land of the Free, need not worry about such oppression and harassment.

P2P programs aren't patented as such (there are some laughable patents on checksum hashing etc, but they generally aren't considered enforcable), and most of them are 100% free software, so there's no problem including them. Still, I suspect most major distros don't since they fear it'll make people think they support copyright infringement as many users use P2P primarily for getting "illegal" music and movies.

So, in conclusion, none of the things you mentioned have anything to do with software patents We should look to Red Hat to find out what is. The MP3 audio compression algorithm is patented in the USA, and in principle the patent owner could start claiming fees for each redistribution of any software (even independant free software) that uses the algorithm. This would be in violation of the GPL, so Red Hat has opted not to include any MP3 software since they are an American company and the American market is very important to them.

Software patents are the devil's spawn and I hope to God they'll not be allowed in the EU. But we should know what they are so as to argue rightfully against them. Educate yourselves :-)

lanrat · 2004-05-16 14:00:48

Here is an example of how the future (with patents in Europe) could look like: http://webshop.ffii.org/

shadov · 2004-05-16 15:21:28

This is slightly OT, but anyway...

Help fighting software patents in Europe! Sign the petition at:
http://petition.eurolinux.org/

IMHO not having sw patents in EU benefits Linux users everywhere since many F/OSS projects are hosted in Europe.

Haakon · 2004-05-16 20:33:42

lanrat wrote:

Here is an example of how the future (with patents in Europe) could look like: http://webshop.ffii.org/

Excellent no-bullshit page, thanks!

steelerguy · 2004-05-17 01:31:25

Haakon wrote:

The proprietary codecs have nothing to do with patents, but with distribution rights. I understand they are DLL files taken directly from Windows. As such, they cannot be freely distributed, but some distros and websites do nonetheless.
The DVD encryption/ripping stuff is controversial only because of American DMCA laws which say you are allowed to rip your DVDs, but you're not allowed to break any encryptions or other barriers in the process (which is absolutely necessary). This has nothing to do with either patents or redistribution rights, and those of us living outside the Land of the Free, need not worry about such oppression and harassment.
P2P programs aren't patented as such (there are some laughable patents on checksum hashing etc, but they generally aren't considered enforcable), and most of them are 100% free software, so there's no problem including them. Still, I suspect most major distros don't since they fear it'll make people think they support copyright infringement as many users use P2P primarily for getting "illegal" music and movies.
So, in conclusion, none of the things you mentioned have anything to do with software patents We should look to Red Hat to find out what is. The MP3 audio compression algorithm is patented in the USA, and in principle the patent owner could start claiming fees for each redistribution of any software (even independant free software) that uses the algorithm. This would be in violation of the GPL, so Red Hat has opted not to include any MP3 software since they are an American company and the American market is very important to them.
Software patents are the devil's spawn and I hope to God they'll not be allowed in the EU. But we should know what they are so as to argue rightfully against them. Educate yourselves :-)

Just a quick note, here in the Land of the Free, you are not forced to purchase a DVD if you disagree with the law that you can not break the encryption and rip it. So this oppression and harassment does not exist, unless you decide to break a stupid law. This choice is up to each and every citizen here. Just because a law is stupid does not give someone the right to break it, especially when it is so easy not to break.

I also don't understand your stance that software patents are devil's spawn. Why? Is it because you resent people who right really good (or really bad) software and make a lot of money on it? Again, the choice is your's. Is it that in the EU they force you to buy and use certain software titles? I don't think that is the case, so if you don't like the patent, don't buy the software. Use a public domain version or better yet write your own.

On a side note, why does no one seem to bitch and moan about games being copywrited or technologies used in them being patented? I mean, I never heard anyone complain about Quake or Half-Life not being open source.

Neje · 2004-05-17 02:01:27

steelerguy wrote:

I mean, I never heard anyone complain about Quake or Half-Life not being open source.

I have ;-) But the Quake source tends to be GPL'ed after a while anyway, and then the same people start complaining that the cheaters should never have gotten access to the source code. Oh well.

steelerguy wrote:

Is it that in the EU they force you to buy and use certain software titles? I don't think that is the case, so if you don't like the patent, don't buy the software. Use a public domain version or better yet write your own.

That could be a problem if the software, for example, calculates your birth sign, and the patent is about "software that calculates your birth sign". You could end up owing the software company money even though you never bought (or even heard of) their product.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something. In that case, enlighten me.

By the way, Haakon, lanrat and shadov: thx 4 the great info + links!

freakyc · 2004-05-17 02:07:49

steelerguy wrote:

if you don't like the patent, don't buy the software. Use a public domain version or better yet write your own.

Is this a joke? I laughed anyways :twisted:

steelerguy · 2004-05-17 03:19:06

That could be a problem if the software, for example, calculates your birth sign, and the patent is about "software that calculates your birth sign". You could end up owing the software company money even though you never bought (or even heard of) their product.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something. In that case, enlighten me.

I understand what you are saying, but the invention has to be novel and can not be obvious. Calculation birth sign would be both of those things so don't worry, go ahead and write your birth sign calculator.

I did a quick search and found this site which I think has a pretty good but short discription of what is required to get a patent:

http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/faq/validity/

I am in no way saying that patents are always good, because there is some really silly patents and laws out there. Personally I think the DMCA is a bunch of crap (although it is not really about patents but copyright, but similar). I also think the RIAA and MPAA are a bunch of money grubbing bastards. This is their right, but it is also mine to not buy CD's or drop $10 for a movie ticket to make them richer. A lot of people just want something for nothing so they download this stuff, which just makes the RIAA and MPAA right. Sure it is changing their tactics very slowly, but the real way to make them adapt is to just stop buying the stuff. If you hit them where it hurts (the wallet) they will adapt very quickly.

Now if we talked about patenting genes sequences I would feel differently. The methods sure, but the sequence itself should be totally open source since it is obvious and not novel, only the method to read it is.

Wow, I have gotten really off topic!

steelerguy · 2004-05-17 03:25:46

freakyc wrote:

steelerguy wrote:
if you don't like the patent, don't buy the software. Use a public domain version or better yet write your own.
Is this a joke? I laughed anyways :twisted:

Yes, it was a joke. I wish Linus would have just been satisfied with Windows, DOS, or some flavor of UNIX and never written the Linux kernel.

shadov · 2004-05-17 08:50:17

steelerguy wrote:

I understand what you are saying, but the invention has to be novel and can not be obvious.

:shock: What's the weather like on your planet? :shock:

Haakon · 2004-05-17 11:55:30

steelerguy wrote:

Just a quick note, here in the Land of the Free, you are not forced to purchase a DVD if you disagree with the law that you can not break the encryption and rip it. So this oppression and harassment does not exist, unless you decide to break a stupid law. This choice is up to each and every citizen here. Just because a law is stupid does not give someone the right to break it, especially when it is so easy not to break.

Ok, so people could just stop buying DVDs and music CDs. I agree there. However, it's a vacuous argument, because they won't. And the entertainment industry doesn't want them to, either. And the provisions of the DMCA I mentioned are considered, even by yourself, as stupid. So people break them gladly (they have a right by law to make personal copies anyway, but at the same time they are required to break another law in order to do it). Such laws undermine the general respect for the sane laws of the country (more people start thinking laws/lawmakers are stupid anyway). So you have a country of criminals, people who just wanted to make personal copies since CDs and DVDs easily scratch, and are found to disintigrate within 20 years anyway (http://www.redding.com/redd/nw_business … 54,00.html).

I also don't understand your stance that software patents are devil's spawn. Why? Is it because you resent people who right really good (or really bad) software and make a lot of money on it?

People who write good software has every right to make money on it. Patents were supposed to be a motivation for inventors to publish all details on their inventions instead of keeping them secrets, in return for a temporary protection of their rights to make money on their inventions. But software patents are being abused as a way for big business to eliminate competition. Look at the webshop example linked to earlier in the thread, that's actual software patents, not some kind of parody! And software patents last 10 years. What kind of software is used for 10 years?

But most of all, software patents are the devil's spawn since it requires every software author to also be a lawyer. There is simply no way to keep track of all things that are patented in software, so you risk coming up with a program that you consider new and inventive, and bam, you find yourself sued. Big business can take that risk, since they can afford litigation and keep a number of "defensive patents" anyway (so if A sues B saying "you violate patent X!", B can say "Well, we have a patent Y here, looks like you violate THAT!"). Software patents are so expensive to get that only the biggest of businesses can afford them anyway, so they almost exclusively work as a way to crush "the little man".

Again, the choice is your's. Is it that in the EU they force you to buy and use certain software titles? I don't think that is the case, so if you don't like the patent, don't buy the software. Use a public domain version or better yet write your own.

I understood this was a joke, and I see it. We all know if a certain piece of software is patented, competing products are actually illegal. Did you know the GUI progress bar is patented in the US? So some dubious company could force KDE, GNOME, GTK, Trolltech and others to remove them, and basically cripple their products. You have companies with no products, that make a living off buying useless patents from other companies and extorting money off small businesses with them.

On a side note, why does no one seem to bitch and moan about games being copywrited or technologies used in them being patented? I mean, I never heard anyone complain about Quake or Half-Life not being open source.

As for copyright, I think it's mostly a good thing (except that they last way too long). All Free Software is copyrighted anyway, and the GPL could not work without copyright.

potentials · 2004-05-17 14:48:38

One can understand and respect the concept of protecting innovative "ideas", which is from what I understand, is the purpose of software patents.

But these ideas have to be exclusive and detailed and not trivial ideas or ideas that many people could come out with.

For example, I understand that the guy behind the MP3 encoding has the right to protect his unique algorithm using a software patent(not talking about implementing the algorithm), but when somebody thinks that he's a genius just because he thought of (or claims that he thought of) an idea that nobody could have thought of (like selling products/services online) then its just ridiculous

mcubednyc · 2004-05-17 14:49:03

steelerguy wrote:

Just a quick note, here in the Land of the Free, you are not forced to purchase a DVD if you disagree with the law that you can not break the encryption and rip it.

Almost precisely why I have not bought a stand-alone DVD player, nor do I buy DVDs. (My PC has a DVD drive -- playback only.) "Almost," because really it has nothing to do with the law, it's simply that I don't want products that employ copy protection schemes. For the same reason, I will not buy copy-protected audio CDs. And yet, people do. Here in the U.S., the DVD has been the most successful new format ever -- more quickly adopted in greater numbers than any other. And in Europe and Asia, the major labels sell many copy-protected CDs and people buy them. So obviously people don't mind copy protection as much as I do. It seems pointless to complain about the abuses of the copyright cartels on the one hand when you support their efforts with your currency on the other.

Frankly, a desire to avoid copy protections and avoid financial support of the abusive sectors of copyright industries is precisely what got me interested in Linux in the first place. After I bought my last computer (the one I use now), I decided it would be the last time I bought a machine with Windows preloaded because I felt I had no choice. There is always a choice, the are plenty of places that sell machines with no Microsoft products bundled, but I didn't know if I could use one to do what I need a computer to do. So now I am learning how I can.

And it makes no difference to me whether Arch Linux or any other distro includes support for copy-protected codecs or encryption-defeating schemes, whether in violation of the law or not. If something is only available in *.wmv/*.wma formats, I can live without it. I won't be buying anything from iTunes music store or Napster 2.0 anyway, given their restrictions on fair use, so I could care less whether I can play them on a Linux system. And I certainly won't be buying anything made by Apple either.

It's become painfully obvious over the past few years that an awful lot of people who love to complain about the RIAA, BSA, MPAA and their international equivalents are unwilling to put their money where their mouths are.

steelerguy wrote:

Just because a law is stupid does not give someone the right to break it, especially when it is so easy not to break.

You may want to think a little harder about that. Personally, I couldn't disagree more -- people break stupid laws every day, passively and aggressively. Eventually stupid laws that people make a point of breaking get rescinded, sometimes with a minimum of fuss, sometimes with a lot of bloodshed. Try telling the people who fought segregation that they didn't have the right to break stupid laws.

steelerguy · 2004-05-18 01:49:52

Almost precisely why I have not bought a stand-alone DVD player, nor do I buy DVDs.

It is always nice to hear about someone who is willing to stand up for what they believe. I actually do own a DVD player and it was not until about 2 years ago that I got completely sick and tired of the MPIA and stopped buying DVD's. Now all I used my DVD player for is to listen to my CD's that I bought up until about 3 years ago. I have bought a few CD's over the last couple of years but they have been from artists that I have found online selling their own music. If you are willing to look, you can find a lot of very good music out there and the CD's are cheap with just about all of the profit going to the actual artist. I imagine though that many of you guys already know this.

You may want to think a little harder about that. Personally, I couldn't disagree more -- people break stupid laws every day, passively and aggressively. Eventually stupid laws that people make a point of breaking get rescinded, sometimes with a minimum of fuss, sometimes with a lot of bloodshed. Try telling the people who fought segregation that they didn't have the right to break stupid laws.

I'm not going to say I disagree with you completely, I guess it just depends on what you consider stupid. I would not view segregations laws as stupid so much as I would consider it immoral. Regardless you are correct, some laws should be broken, but when it comes to breaking the law so you can "make a backup" (which we know that in the vast majority of cases is not why a CD or DVD is being ripped) there really is no excuse. Either buy the CD/DVD and line the pockets of the rich exectutive, or go without. There is not a damn thing wrong with making people richer, just don't go playing Robin Hood and pretending to be standing up for a cause, when all you are really doing is ripping someone off because you want it for free.

steelerguy · 2004-05-18 02:20:34

Haakon wrote:

Ok, so people could just stop buying DVDs and music CDs. I agree there. However, it's a vacuous argument, because they won't.

Not entirely true. I have stopped and so have a lot of other people I know. These people probably only make up a couple percent of former customer base of DVDs and CDs but at least I can put my money where my mouth is, as someone said.

Haakon wrote:

Such laws undermine the general respect for the sane laws of the country (more people start thinking laws/lawmakers are stupid anyway). So you have a country of criminals, people who just wanted to make personal copies since CDs and DVDs easily scratch, and are found to disintigrate within 20 years anyway.

I agree with you, you should not only be allowed to make a personal copy but be able to do it legally. If you are told you can make a copy but you are not allowed to break the encryption to do it, then you should just say "screw that" and not purchase. I have a hard time feeling sorry for those that get busted, especially when 99% (ya I am just guessing) of them are not making backup copies, they are pirating music/movies/software.

Haakon wrote:

People who write good software has every right to make money on it. Patents were supposed to be a motivation for inventors to publish all details on their inventions instead of keeping them secrets, in return for a temporary protection of their rights to make money on their inventions.
...
But most of all, software patents are the devil's spawn since it requires every software author to also be a lawyer. There is simply no way to keep track of all things that are patented in software, so you risk coming up with a program that you consider new and inventive, and bam, you find yourself sued.

I could be wrong, but is seems to me you are saying that there is nothing wrong with software patents themselves, but the way they are given and enforced. I do agree with that, but I don't think the answer is to eliminate patents. Rather I think the better things to do is not only educate law makers, but also stop all these lobbyist groups from being able to pay off the lawmakers to vote for things they know are wrong. Also, people should get up off their lazy asses and vote, so we can get rid of the ones that pass stupid legislation.

Haakon wrote:

I understood this was a joke, and I see it. We all know if a certain piece of software is patented, competing products are actually illegal. Did you know the GUI progress bar is patented in the US? So some dubious company could force KDE, GNOME, GTK, Trolltech and others to remove them, and basically cripple their products.

As long as it is just Trolltech and KDE that get hit I am okay with it. : ) I know, I know, bad joke. I was just thinking of how fun it would be to start a good old fashion KDE vs. GNOME flame war!

Haakon wrote:

As for copyright, I think it's mostly a good thing (except that they last way too long). All Free Software is copyrighted anyway, and the GPL could not work without copyright.

You are right about lasting too long, especially when Disney can go and keep getting extensions by throwing their money around. I think we are really thinking the same thing, just from different angles. You dislike the laws or proposed laws and want them done away with. I am willing to follow the stupid law, by just not giving my money to the people who wanted it and then voting out the idiots who put it in the law books.

I do think we all agree that something should change, it is just a matter of how to go about doing it. With the vast majority of P2P music/movie downloaders being people who are just cheap and break the law in the guise of a crusader sticking it to the man, I have a feeling I will being going a few more years without buying a DVD or mainstream CD.

steelerguy · 2004-05-18 02:22:53

shadov wrote:

steelerguy wrote:
I understand what you are saying, but the invention has to be novel and can not be obvious.
:shock: What's the weather like on your planet? :shock:

http://www.w3.weather.com/weather/local/11790 Much better than a couple of months ago, thank you.

Dusty · 2004-05-18 04:07:52

I would like to pantent the following line of code:

for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {

and all lines that resemble a looping structure. Anybody who uses this line of code or similar is required to purchase a "very expensive" licence from me.

Dusty

wdemoss · 2004-05-18 12:29:03

Dusty wrote:

I would like to pantent the following line of code:
for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
and all lines that resemble a looping structure. Anybody who uses this line of code or similar is required to purchase a "very expensive" licence from me.
Dusty

I already own it, that will be $2 for posting it. You can pay pal me if you want

mcubednyc · 2004-05-18 14:19:25

steelerguy wrote:

I could be wrong, but is seems to me you are saying that there is nothing wrong with software patents themselves, but the way they are given and enforced. I do agree with that, but I don't think the answer is to eliminate patents.

I can't speak for Haakon, but for myself, I think there is something wrong with the whole concept of software patents (and business method patents as well). They attempt to monetize something that there is no need to monetize, and they do so at the expense of progress, which is what patents are supposed to encourage.

Software is protected by copyright. What is the justification for also according software patent protection, aside from the fact that that's what Microsoft and IBM want? A patent, historically, protects something novel and useful that cannot otherwise be protected by copyright. Drug formulas, for example, are patented to reward the people or companies who develop them, so that they will continue to develop others. Drug formulas can't be copyrighted -- they are recipes, lists of ingredients, not an original expression of an idea. A patent is the only way to protect the developer's ability to profit from that particular formula, to profit from the product of the labor it took to develop that formula.

But there is another way for the software developer to profit from the product of his labor -- copyright. Now one could argue that all software ought to be protected by patents instead of copyright, but I don't understand the rationale for it being protected by both. Software patents protect a method of accomplishing something, not the specific process by which it accomplishes it. The "specific process" is already protected by copyright. Every time we boot up Arch Linux, it tells us that Arch Linux is copyrighted by Judd Vinet. What exactly is it that he has copyrighted? The processes and implementations that are exclusive to the ways in which Arch Linux functions. Why would he also need to patent any of these processes or implementations? His ability to profit from the product of his labor is already protected by copyright.

It is the "method" part that invalidates these types of patents, I think, because historically, developing a new method was its own reward. Amazon's "one-click" order processing enabled Amazon to profit from its inventiveness by being the first to offer that convenience to its customers. Why should Amazon be granted an exclusive right to that method, when it already profits by being first? I can see granting Amazon a patent on the specific process by which Amazon implements its method, but not on the method itself. The specific process can not be copyrighted, it isn't an original expression of an idea -- it's more akin to a recipe or a formula. But software & business-method patents are just that -- patents on methods, not on processes. It's like saying if I describe a method for turning corn into what I call a "flake," then no one else can make a product that turns corn into anything resembling a flake for 20 years (the current patent term), without paying me. Why? I can see patenting the specific process by which I turn corn into a flake, but I can't see why I should have an exclusive right to the method of turning corn into flakes for any period of time at all. Why shouldn't I compete on the open market with others who imitate my idea? Isn't that what gives the most benefit to the most people, myself included? I can still make money, plenty of it, if people like my corn flakes, and want to pay what I want to charge, and I get the benefit of being first on the market with a new product. Furthermore, if my patented process is the most efficient of various processes for turning corn into flakes, I'll be able to do it less expensively than my competitors. Because of that, I can't see any justification for the protectionist argument that I should have the exclusive right to the method of turning corn into flakes.

That's what software & business-method patents are, IMO -- protectionism. They don't benefit anybody except the relatively few entrenched powerhouses of any given industry, companies that in many cases are trying their hardest to maintain their position by preventing others from being able to compete against them. That was not and should be the purpose of the patent system.

beniro · 2004-05-18 20:33:23

Software patents have been approved in the European Union.

Now what?

...

And it all turns out that Europeans are as stupid as us New Worlders? We're hopeless...

Dusty · 2004-05-18 21:07:44

"If only it had been known that humans were actually the third most intelligent species on Earth, rather than the second as was commonly thought..."

Neje · 2004-05-18 23:32:09

Dusty wrote:

"If only it had been known that humans were actually the third most intelligent species on Earth, rather than the second as was commonly thought..."

Is this about the white mice, or am I thinking of the wrong book?

Dusty · 2004-05-19 04:08:05

Neje wrote:

Dusty wrote:
"If only it had been known that humans were actually the third most intelligent species on Earth, rather than the second as was commonly thought..."
Is this about the white mice, or am I thinking of the wrong book?

Nope, that's the book.

kakabaratruskia · 2004-05-19 19:01:47

That's probably why people tell me that I can't be human...

Arch Linux

#1 2004-05-16 03:05:38

Something about patents.

#2 2004-05-16 11:25:46

Re: Something about patents.

#3 2004-05-16 14:00:48

Re: Something about patents.

#4 2004-05-16 15:21:28

Re: Something about patents.

#5 2004-05-16 20:33:42

Re: Something about patents.

#6 2004-05-17 01:31:25

Re: Something about patents.

#7 2004-05-17 02:01:27

Re: Something about patents.

#8 2004-05-17 02:07:49

Re: Something about patents.

#9 2004-05-17 03:19:06

Re: Something about patents.

#10 2004-05-17 03:25:46

Re: Something about patents.

#11 2004-05-17 08:50:17

Re: Something about patents.

#12 2004-05-17 11:55:30

Re: Something about patents.

#13 2004-05-17 14:48:38

Re: Something about patents.

#14 2004-05-17 14:49:03

Re: Something about patents.

#15 2004-05-18 01:49:52

Re: Something about patents.

#16 2004-05-18 02:20:34

Re: Something about patents.

#17 2004-05-18 02:22:53

Re: Something about patents.

#18 2004-05-18 04:07:52

Re: Something about patents.

#19 2004-05-18 12:29:03

Re: Something about patents.

#20 2004-05-18 14:19:25

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Re: Something about patents.

#23 2004-05-18 23:32:09

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Re: Something about patents.

#25 2004-05-19 19:01:47

Re: Something about patents.

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