Straw man attack - here we come! [LWN.net]

Straw man attack - here we come!

Posted Jul 8, 2009 3:00 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Glad we agree in the end... by bojan
Parent article: Ogg codecs dropped from HTML5

Software was being developed just fine without patents. Plenty of innovation. I mention that before.

And it's now what I'm talking about at all. I'm not saying (and never said) lack of software patents will bring number of innovations down to zero. Just like lack of copyright will not bring number of stories down to zero.

Back in the 90's just about everyone in the thriving proprietary software industry was _against_ software patents.

Suuure. IBM was against patents? Or may be Philips was against software patents? Microsoft was against software patents because it had none - but to say that the whole industry was against them is just... how come they were ever created and used (including in audio/video codec standards) if everyone was against them?

to post comments

Straw man attack - here we come!

Posted Jul 8, 2009 4:21 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (2 responses)

> Microsoft was against software patents because it had none - but to say that the whole industry was against them is just... how come they were ever created and used (including in audio/video codec standards) if everyone was against them?

And Oracle. And Autodesk. And Adobe. And Borland. And Lotus. All innovators at the time.

As usual, there is always enough of the established players that want to retain status quo for a greedy proposal to go through. Just think of that used car salesman again. Do you really need to ask him what he thinks of the car you're pointing at?

Have it your way. Software patents are just peachy and everybody loves them. Let's have more of them. Then we'll have to have even more stupid workarounds like the recent VFAT kernel stuff. Awesome. And we have digital video today because we had software patents. Otherwise, we'd still be stuck with the old analogue gear.

PS. BTW, any idiot working at USPTO or any other patent office that sees fit to approve moronic things like Microsoft's "computer bolted to the car that has wireless" should be immediately fired and words "patently stupid" tattooed on his/her forehead.

PPS. When we entrust patents to the morons that come up with rationales like this: http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/strategies/case_kambrk.shtml, all kinds of things go wrong. Note: the company is alive and well, despite the fact it didn't get that patent, when it supposedly should have.

Now you are just bitter...

Posted Jul 8, 2009 5:30 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

And Oracle. And Autodesk. And Adobe. And Borland. And Lotus. All innovators at the time.

All? You mean Apple or AT&T were against software patents too? Industry was divided back then like it was now. World is not white and black - there are other colors.

Have it your way. Software patents are just peachy and everybody loves them. Let's have more of them. Then we'll have to have even more stupid workarounds like the recent VFAT kernel stuff. Awesome.

Again: don't oversiplify things. I never said software patents "are just peachy" - on the contrary I think they must be abolished. Not because they are pure evil, but because benefits are not big enough and fallout is way too big. But when you are starting the whole "software patents have no good sides to them at all" you just show yourself as someone totally detached from reality - and so make all your other argument suspicious too.

And we have digital video today because we had software patents. Otherwise, we'd still be stuck with the old analogue gear.

Today? Nope. Not even close. We had diginal video 20 years ago because of the patents and now we have huge mess in this area related to said patents. Was the advantage of getting digital video sooner rather then later worth it? Hard to say, but probably not. But it's no coincidence that this area is so heavily patented - and to ignore the fact is to throw out the baby with the bath water...

BTW, any idiot working at USPTO or any other patent office that sees fit to approve moronic things like Microsoft's "computer bolted to the car that has wireless" should be immediately fired and words "patently stupid" tattooed on his/her forehead.

Nope. The system is designed in such a way as to punish honest worker (lost royalties! waaah!) and reward hustlers (Ok - this patent was thrown out by court... let's try the other 100 patents we have available).

If the problem was moved to courts - it should be fixed there. Right now the patent litigation process is designed in such a way as to make it great for patent trolls and disaster for honest guys. Even if you win patent litigation and prove that patent was frivolous - you get nothing in return! May be pat on the head... If we know that a lot of patents are bogus - why not introduce something like "reverse treble damages" for litigator? I mean: Microsoft is free to claim it lost $100'000'000 because TomTom refused to buy license patents in question - but then it should be ready to pay $300'000'000 if the patents are reexamined and invalidated. This will make 99% patents useless - but the rock-solid ones will be kept around.

I'm not the sure it's the best way to fix the patent mess. May be, may be not. But we should think in this direction and not in direction of deus ex machine which can remove all frivolous patents from existence after the fact...

Now you are just bitter...

Posted Jul 8, 2009 21:36 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

> But when you are starting the whole "software patents have no good sides to them at all" you just show yourself as someone totally detached from reality - and so make all your other argument suspicious too.

Oh, there are good sides to software patents. For the patent holders, that is.

Once again, history is forgotten. Software was being developed _without_ patents just fine. But, as usual, lawyers have found an angle, so they pursued it. And now we have the mess, as you said yourself.

> But it's no coincidence that this area is so heavily patented - and to ignore the fact is to throw out the baby with the bath water...

Coming back to your original remark:

> Patent-encumbered formats were developed faster then totally free ones - and diffirence is sizable: years, not days or months.

The only question here is this: if software patents were not available, would the same companies develop digital video at the time?

Your answer to this question is "probably not" (i.e. maybe there is something to having software patents after all).

I'm pretty sure they would. Said companies would licence their product differently - using just copyright - but they'd do it just the same. Even 20 years ago people understood Moore's law. They knew processing power in the future would make digital players cheaper than analogue ones. The also knew that storage would improve, making it practical to have a superior digital recording on a medium that can actually hold it. And they knew that if they didn't keep improving their products, nobody would want to buy them.

So, yeah, I _really_ do think that software patents are a terrible idea. Digital video included. If this makes me a lunatic, then fine.