Microsoft co-founder and patent troll Paul Allen passes away
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https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/10/16/0310252
https://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/358907/paul_allen_ms_co-founder_tech_pioneer_-_patent_troll_/
I bet Stallman will give him the "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone" sendoff.
Originally, Microsoft was not a patent troll. It was forced to mass up patents for defensive purposes.
But patent trolls are not those who benefit most from software patent system. Patent lawyers are. EFF's "Stupid Patent of the Month" issue is very interesting. Don't miss it if you want to know what software patent system really does.
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Originally, Microsoft was not a patent troll. It was forced to mass up patents for defensive purposes.
The article I linked to claims that Paul Allen became a patent troll in 2010 many years after leaving Microsoft.
Does the EFF discuss patents that haven't been invalidated? If so, software developers should probably not follow that (I don't). I'm not a lawyer, of course, so don't take this as legal advice (it isn't), but you can get into much more serious trouble for infringing a patent if you knew about it. I avoid any and all information about unexpired software patents like the plague for this reason.
i think apple still has a patent on a scrollbar. they renamed it "slide to unlock" which magically makes it patentable, despite being invented by xerox more than 20 years ago, before apple even had a gui.
im going to patent "a method for lying to the public about owning concepts, by means of specifically crafted language to conflate obvious solutions with inventions" but i still have to think of a name for it. something like "idea monopoly," "concept hoarding," wait-- "intellectual property!"
as a plus, it makes it sound like something thats only mine that everyone else is trying to get for free.
Read Richard Stallman's "Danger of Software Patents" and other articles in the "Patents" section of the book "Free Software, Free Society" for more details about how software patents work. And you'll understand why software patents are extremely unfair for free software (developers).
"And you'll understand why software patents are extremely unfair for free software (developers)"
i have a simple compiler, apple had a patent on parsing arbitrary plaintext and harvesting user data to turn into links, im pretty sure theres loads of prior art...
they might as well have a patent on ignoring syntax errors (since thats how you parse arbitrary plaintext-- you ignore things that dont fit your parser and process the ones that do.)
applying patents to software when the computer is already invented is a bit like patenting using a car to deliver pizza when cars and pizza are already invented. which came up when someone gained a bogus patent similar to that.
the patent office is broken, or they would be rejecting most or all software patents. the patent trial and appeal board (formed in 2012) has supposedly helped a great deal, though throwing out the most bogus patents while not going after the giant bogus portfolios seems like a recipe for further conflict.
but really, you dont have to get fancy or read a book to know why patents are bad.
we write software, microsoft goes to suse and tells them to "admit" (in writing) that our software belongs to microsoft. eventually, microsoft takes these long-standing agreements and tells the world "only hobbyists think that our software is theirs, the larger development groups have all signed agreements that this is our property."
this hasnt stopped under nadella, and i dont know of any precident for stealing an entire ecosystem just based on sending around a petition to the people that foster its development (though the expansion of the united states mainland might count.) in 1995 scotus made it possible to patent living organisms, though bayer (monsanto) didnt go around to natural food shops and ask them to sign for it.
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>I bet Stallman will give him the "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone" sendoff.
It would be a shame if he didn't.
Not sure if he should have been terribly glad. Tim Cook seems like a pretty ruthless fellow. And there's probably a bunch of other ruthless guys behind Cook if he ever steps down.
i agree with your math, though i suspect i know how stallmans reasoning works (this is for fun, and im not really sure i ever know how stallmans reasoning works, but i do often admire it.)
in our math, we are losing a figurehead (perhaps a powerful one that is far more than a figurehead) with a value of 1.0 that is being replaced by someone with a worse value-- of 1.2 or more.
i suspect stallman would be glad either way, because even if a 1.0 is replaced with a 1.2, he calculates it as going from say 2.2 (total) to 1.2 (total) in the amount of problems there are for software freedom.
you and i would likely separate the 1.0 at the top from the 1.2 replacement. however, stallman would probably consider that both are parts of the sum of total problem-- and a reduction in the total is an improvement.
a bonus is that he doesnt have to go back on whether being steve jobsless is really a good thing. but depending on how you look at it, apple is worse off and free software is better off. either way, i have said before that i will likely miss linus when he steps down if someone like gkh takes over. and i dont like linus that much.
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