Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!AI.MIT.EDU!rms From: r...@AI.MIT.EDU (Richard Stallman) Newsgroups: gnu.g++.help,comp.lang.c++ Subject: Software patents Message-ID: <9012110035.AA08725@mole.ai.mit.edu> Date: 11 Dec 90 00:35:59 GMT Sender: dae...@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Followup-To: gnu.g++.help Organization: Gatewayed from the GNU Project mailing list help-...@prep.ai.mit.edu Lines: 19 Posted: Tue Dec 11 01:35:59 1990 I expect software patents will put an end to the GNU project within a couple of years if they are not eliminated. It will not be possible to write most of the programs that a user of GNU would expect without infringing patents, and licensing patents is not an option for us. To illustrate the problem, it appears that a patent was recently granted on include files. (Usenix told its members this patent exists, but I don't have any details yet.) It may be invalid, but proving this in court could cost half a million dollars. If we are unlucky and the patent is upheld, there go GCC and G++ down the drain. GNU developers are not the only ones afraid of patents. In a workshop with software developers in September, the Office of Technology Assessment found that most of them were opposed to patents. Many prominent entrepreneurs including jimad's employer seem to think they are a bad idea. For more information about the danger of software patents, contact lea...@prep.ai.mit.edu.
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!europa.att.com!ark From: a...@europa.att.com (Andrew Koenig) Newsgroups: gnu.g++.help,comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: Software patents Message-ID: <9012111808.AA20219@life.ai.mit.edu> Date: 11 Dec 90 14:29:02 GMT Sender: dae...@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Followup-To: gnu.g++.help Organization: Gatewayed from the GNU Project mailing list help-...@prep.ai.mit.edu Lines: 37 Posted: Tue Dec 11 15:29:02 1990 The basis for patents in the US is Section 8, paragraph 8 of the US constitution: Section 8. The congress shall have power: . . . (8) To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; That is, the legal ability to patent an algorithm stems from the same part of the constitution as the legal ability for the FSF to prevent people from selling proprietary extensions to GNU software. Moreover, there is the same basis for both: to give people an incentive to develop new ideas instead of keeping them secret. When you patent something, you get exclusive rights to it for a while, in exchange for which you are spared the bother of keeping it secret. After the patent expires, everyone gets the benefit of it. A key phrase is `for limited times,' and it is there that I think the entire problem lies with software patents. If I invent a new method of fastening picture frames to wallboard, the construction industry would not be seriously impeded if I have exclusive rights to those fasteners for seventeen years. People have been building things for millenia; seventeen years is negligible by comparison. On the other hand, seventeen years is a substantial fraction of the total time the software industry has been in existence! This argues that software patents should be much shorter-lived than other patents. I submit that if the duration for software patents were changed to seventeen months, most practical objections to them would vanish, especially if that were coupled with the restriction that nothing can be patented if it is already in widespread use.
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!AI.MIT.EDU!rms From: r...@AI.MIT.EDU (Richard Stallman) Newsgroups: gnu.g++.help,comp.lang.c++ Subject: Software patents Message-ID: <9012112010.AA13903@mole.ai.mit.edu> Date: 11 Dec 90 20:10:06 GMT Sender: dae...@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Followup-To: gnu.g++.help Organization: Gatewayed from the GNU Project mailing list help-...@prep.ai.mit.edu Lines: 19 Posted: Tue Dec 11 21:10:06 1990 Yesterday I sent a message to help-g++ stating the FSF position on software patents, including how we expect them to affect the GNU project. Now it seems that people are starting to argue against the FSF position. This list is not the right place for that. If people want to have a discussion of the issue, they should use gnu-misc-disc...@prep.ai.mit.edu. (I should have said this for the discussion of the Apple boycott also, but I didn't remember until too late.) Andrew Koenig's message contains some accurate information and some views that partly agree and partly disagree. Rather than continue an argument here, I urge anyone interested in the issue to ask lea...@prep.ai.mit.edu for information on the League for Programming Freedom position and the arguments behind it. If and when I get more information about the patent on include files, I will inform people.