Well, I see it at the coal face. Can’t be fairer than that, can it? [/quote:9b647541d9]
Erm, most (all?) of the software companies you do business with, you do business with because they are looking for patents or legal IP stuff.So, you’re impression of the percentage of software companies that seek patents is gong to be skewed. This is relevant because you frequently assert that the software industry will be hurt so badly without software patents because it is so reliant on them as it stands.
Then we’re at cross-purposes. My point is only that business owners (or MDs… whatever) decide whether patents are good for their business, not whether patents are ‘good things in general’ (let academics debate that).
[/quote:9b647541d9]But whether (software) patents are ‘good things in general’ is very much whats under debate! I initially commented on this issue because pkelly said:
No one has yet convinced me how software patents benefit the industry, I say this a professional programmer.
[/quote:9b647541d9]and you said:
No disrespect, but that type of appreciation is better left to who owns the business you work in. They ponder and decide whether a patent is good tool for their business development or not, not you.[/quote:9b647541d9]
I read that as you essentially saying that an appreciation of the benefits, or goodness, of patents, for the software industry, was best left to the people that owned software businesses.
And such argumentation is fraught to begin with, since most of the hardware and software used by the free software people was patented at some stage or other and has since fallen into the public domain when the relevant patents died. [/quote:9b647541d9]
That’s quite a claim, for the software at least. Depends on how you quantify the software, I suppose… There’s certainly ideas used in Linux, for example, but to estimate what percentage of the software they’d make up…Finally, I guess the chemical or biotech boffins, as you put it, don’t reject the patenting system because while it might make their research harder, they accept the price because they believe the other advantages outweight it.
[/quote:9b647541d9]
So, this logic does not apply to software?
[/quote:9b647541d9]
Well, the logic certainly applies – it’s good logic.
But those opposing software patents would say that because *software* is *different*, the advantages of software patents do not outweight the disadvantages, and so it software patents shouldn’t be allowed.
Seems pretty obvious to me.
What’s important isn’t the logic, Im sure we can agree on it, what’s important is whether you believe the advantages do outweigh the disadvantages.So…
what are the advantages of allowing software patents?what are the disadvantages?
Erm… seems to me that FSF and Eurolinux have not been shy about lobbying politicians (Mr Rocard springs to mind), nor been honest – so, why applying the double standards now? [/quote:9b647541d9]
I wasn’t applying double standards.
I was pointing you *might* have been.I object to dubious tactics when they are used by either, or both, sides.