Automation, free software and moral duty
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Dear, I do not speak good English and I need your help or opinion.
Imagine that you are creating a project that is innovative robotics for the place where you live. You use free software programs to make the mechanical design of the robot, to create electronics and control software.
All software robot (client-server) is free. The robot uses a plate with Debian BEAGLEBONE it only works as a server. Suppose the robot works entirely with free software.
It turns out that many people ask you .... Are you going to patent the project?
They tell you that other companies can copy your designs and can make robots at lower prices and you can not compete with them.
Many have raised me to patent to prohibit the commercial exploitation of the work, but I think allow study and make changes to hardware and software.
Moreover, the patent office of my country, is under the control of people who are not reliable. This is a separate problem.
This question comes from this thread https://trisquel.info/en/forum/software-libre-y-prueba-moral
What would your answer and why?
Software patents should not exist. Watch and listen:
Even assuming you have no ethics, owning a software patent will not bring any advantage. Only large companies and patent trolls have interests in patenting software (to respectively prevent competition, hence innovation, for 20 years and to make money doing nothing, i.e., pure parasitizing). There is no point in owning patents unless you have millions to use them in courts. If you don't, the only way to get a fraction of the invested money back would be to sell the patent to a patent troll, a terrible although common outcome.
And, again, software patents make no sense: software is like math. There is no ethical use of those patents.
The software will be free, so it will not be patented.
I'm talking about patent to prohibit the commercial exploitation of the work, ie, that a company can not manufacture the robot, except that it is for their own use.
If a work of art material, like a robot, if it is not covered by a license or patent, companies can manufacture at low cost, change and resell proprietary software.
"prohibit the commercial exploitation"
We shouldn't start adding usage restrictions lest we end up in a situation where we can't use anything. Imagine an OS. "Well, this component doesn't allow commercial use. This component doesn't allow military use. This other component doesn't allow use in abortion clinics. This other part doesn't allow...." The end result is a system you can't use for anything. And so: One of the key tenets in the free world is that everyone and all usage cases are treated the same. Freedom 0 literally means for ANY purpose. Even the commercial ones. Or for the others that you don't like.
As far as I understand his reply, dcapeletti is not talking about software. He is talking about patenting the hardware.
@dcapeletti: am I right?
"dcapeletti is not talking about software"
Yes, this is why I talked of the "free world", not of "free software." The same thing applies to free hardware. I used an OS only as an example. Usage restrictions on hardware should not be applied for the same reason in the free world.
Well, I do not know much about the patent system in general. However, as far as I understand, patents in the physical world cover precise technologies, described in precise terms, not any idea anyone has, like with software patents. So, if I am not mistaken, it is not like hundreds of (hardware) patents can apply to a robot in the same way that hundreds of (software) patents can apply to the OS it runs. Am I mistaken?
Probably. The patent system is horribly broken. Best to get rid of it. But at least while it's around, don't use patents to create usage restrictions.
What you say is correct.
The argument against software patents used by the FSF isn't actually that they restrict user freedom, but that they create a web of vaguely defined 'no-go' zones which make it nearly impossible to implement anything without being at risk of a lawsuit. Patented hardware designs aren't 'free', but the risk of an innocent developer accidentally running afoul is much lower than for a patented software.
That said, allowing people to learn from a creation whilst locking out competitors is difficult. Blocking commercial development entirely may not be a good idea, as jxself pointed out; if patenting is necessary, the best idea might be demanding a fixed portion of any profits made in return for the right to use the design. However, this still has its flaws.
Wel has far has I understand patents, they can apply to anything, it unrealistic but it is how it works.
A few years ago someone wanted to show the absurdity of the system by patenting snowmen’s and he actually got the patents to it.
In some case you don't patent the product itself but the means of making it or using it.
For example someone patented in texas how to connect to wifi, not the technical aspect but how a normal users clicks on a certain window and then insert the password etc...
This shows how absurd patents are.
see this (sorry for youtube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eatfgXTMFf0
A other aspect of patents is for the future, the problem is that since patents and industrial secrets tends to monopolize knowledge, in the end it only crushes the little of free market that can exist and only amplifies monopolies.
We are losing knowledge in general instead of it expanding it.
Once I thought that patent problem could be resolved by using a special kind of patent that would legally enforce a company to share their advancements related to the use of the said patented object, but you can go easily around it, plus if you don't have a lot of money you can't do anything to protect the sharing perspectives introduced in it.
Your examples are patents on software or processes. No doubt those patents (illegal in most jurisdictions: in the EU, in China, in India, in Brazil, etc.) work against innovation. However, I am not sure that statement can be generalized to any type of patent. In fact, patents were introduced as an alternative to industrial secret, so that knowledge is spread across the whole society after twenty years of monopoly. And patents on physical systems are to be specific and worded in precise terms (e.g., the "best mode" in US patents).
Thank you for your criticism. The software will be free, both client and server.
What is affected by the patent is the mechanical, electrical and electronic design of the work. But the patent focuses only thing is to ban the production on a mass scale by large companies for profit.
Mechanical design drawings will be free, so you could use it to make your own machine, but what I want is to market mass prohibit, for example 10,000 units. Big business would do well to make use of a free work to get commercial benefit and even do it with non-free software.
I would draft a patent that allows the study, copy, modify and distribute but for nonprofit use. For example, it could be used freely in the educational field.
You absolutely want the software you write under a copylefted license, probably the GNU GPLv3+. A competitor that would like to build similar robots running proprietary software would then have to rewrite everything. Assuming it is much work, it probably won't and will end up improving your software. Improvements that must be distributed under the same license. It has nothing to do with patents and everything to do with copyright (well, copyleft).
A patent should not impose any restriction on the software. It should purely deal with the hardware.
If correct, all software will be free.
Mechanical design drawings will be free. Only I think would be useful for a patent that can not be manufactured in bulk. If someone wanted to, I could make a profit on each unit sold. I would not restrict freedom of anyone.
What worries me is that I authorize the manufacture and launch their models with non-free software.
I know this is a different issue, but there is some similarity: when creating online comics (think XKCD), the licensed that can be used allows libre use of the work, with one limitation: no commercial use. Basically, do whatever you want with it, but don't re-sell it.
I like it, but it's very case-specific.
Food for thought.
One must remember that XKCD is at least shareable, not free/libre.
I'm not a free/libre culture activist, but this is one of the
distinctions from free/libre software movement, and free/libre culture
movement.
Then ok, it's not fully libre culture by definition.
Yet I still think it's libre enough.
I'm all for focusing on freedom, unless it ends up hurting me. I mean the right to re-sell artwork serves no logical nor meaningful purpose.
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