[ale] Stallman: Still the True Champion of Intellectual Freedom

[arxaaron]

A good friend shared a link to an ArsTechnica article on a recent
conference addressing the destructive and obstructive injuries to
innovation being perpetrated by the fallacious protectionism and
greed driven insanity of U.S. software patents.

Green Party advocate and firearms rights activist Richard Stallman
was there, of course, and spoke truth to power by offering the only
real and comprehensive solution, not to mention the simplest and
most principled solution.  Whatever you may feel about his ideas
and ideals, or his passionate expression of them, it is hard not to
respect this person as an unassailable and increasingly rare
example of personal integrity in the world:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/your-criticisms-are-completely-wrong-stallman-on-software-patents/

In reading some of the comments I found one of the best, most
direct analogies for explaining the detrimental nature of software
patents that I have yet come across.  Even one of the most notorious
and unscrupulous corporapists in the industry would seem to agree
with the the European Union that software patents are a heinous,
dysfunctional blockade to innovation...

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Last edited by ScifiGeek on Wed Nov 21, 2012 8:41 am
---
Copyright protects you from people [plagiarizing]  your software  
projects.
Just like it protects an author from people [plagiarizing] their  
novels, short
stories, and poems.

But patents on sentence structures, rhyming couplets and other  
techniques
of writing would not offer any more real protection to authors, [and  
would]
instead make the work of Authors more and more difficult, grinding it  
to a halt.

It has long been recognized by those in the software industry:
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of
today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry
would be at a complete standstill today". - Bill Gates (1991)
====

In keeping with the spirit of the weekend, I'm infinitely thankful to
the universe that I exist within a slice of space time that is shared
by Richard Stallman. :-)

in peace
aaron