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www/philosophy stallman-mec-india.html
|
From: |
Yavor Doganov |
|
Subject: |
www/philosophy stallman-mec-india.html |
|
Date: |
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:13:55 +0000 |
CVSROOT: /web/www
Module name: www
Changes by: Yavor Doganov <yavor> 08/07/20 20:13:55
Modified files:
philosophy : stallman-mec-india.html
Log message:
Various typo fixes; many more left to be done.
CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.9&r2=1.10
Patches:
Index: stallman-mec-india.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html,v
retrieving revision 1.9
retrieving revision 1.10
diff -u -b -r1.9 -r1.10
--- stallman-mec-india.html 19 Jul 2008 15:41:53 -0000 1.9
+++ stallman-mec-india.html 20 Jul 2008 20:13:34 -0000 1.10
@@ -19,21 +19,21 @@
</p>
<p> Mr. Richard Mathew Stallman launched the development of the GNU
operating system in 1984, the goal being to create a completely free
-Unix-like operating system. The organisation that was founded in 1985
+Unix-like operating system. The organization that was founded in 1985
to further this purpose is the Free Software Foundation.
</p>
<p>
Stallman is a visionary of computing in our times, and is the genius
behind programs such as emacs, gcc, the GNU debugger and more. Most
-importantly, he's the author of the GNU general public licence, the
-licence under which more than half of all free software is distributed
+importantly, he's the author of the GNU General Public License, the
+license under which more than half of all free software is distributed
and developed. The combination of GNU with Linux, the kernel, called
the GNU/Linux operating system, now has an estimated twenty million
users worldwide.
</p>
<p>
Stallman's concept of free software talks about freedom, rather than
-about price. His ideas g a long way into ensuring development of
+about price. His ideas go a long way into ensuring development of
software for the welfare of society, collectively developed by
programmers who do not “lock up” their work, but rather
release it for others to study, modify and redistribute.
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@
separately.
</p>
<p>
-So the intelligent way to talk about them is never to generalise about
+So the intelligent way to talk about them is never to generalize about
them but to talk about a specific one, you know, talk about copyrights
or talk about patents or talk about trademarks, but never lump them
all together as intellectual property because that is a recipe for
@@ -133,7 +133,7 @@
all sorts of excuses to ignore the fact that whenever any programmer
looks at it his first statement is, “this is absurd, it's
obvious”. They say, “well, this is hindsight”. So
-they have an excuse to completely ignore the judgement of everybody
+they have an excuse to completely ignore the judgment of everybody
who really is a programmer.
</p>
<p>
@@ -192,7 +192,7 @@
and since we could not use compress we began looking for some other
compression program. We found that somebody came forward and said,
“I have been working on this algorithm for a year and now I have
-decided I am going to contribute it to you. Here is the code’.
+decided I am going to contribute it to you. Here is the code”.
We were a week away from releasing this program when I just happened
to see a copy of the New York Times, which doesn't happen very often,
and it just happened to have the weekly patents column and I noted it
@@ -223,7 +223,7 @@
In the US there are over a hundred thousand of them; may be two
hundred thousand of them. This is just an estimate. I know that 10
years ago they were issuing 10,000 a year and I believe it has
-accelarated since then. So it's too much for you to keep track of
+accelerated since then. So it's too much for you to keep track of
them unless that's your full-time job. Now you can try to search for
those that are relevant to what you are doing, and this works some of
the time. If you search for keywords or follow links you'll find some
@@ -297,12 +297,12 @@
“I can't recognize my own inventions in patents”.
</p>
<p>
-Few years ago an engineer in US named Paul Heckel was sueing Apple.
+Few years ago an engineer in US named Paul Heckel was suing Apple.
He had a couple of software patents in the late 80's for a software
package and then when he saw hypercards and looked at inside —
this is nothing like my program. He didn't think any more of it. But
later on his lawyer explained to him that if you read this patent
-carefully hypercards fell into the prohibitted area. So he sued Apple
+carefully hypercards fell into the prohibited area. So he sued Apple
feeling this is an opportunity to get some money. Well once when I
give a speech like this, he was in the audience, and he said “oh
no that's not true. I just wasn't aware of the scope of my
@@ -310,20 +310,20 @@
</p>
<p>
So you are going to have to spend a lot of time working with a lawyer
-and expaining to the lawyer what projects you are working on, so that
+and explaining to the lawyer what projects you are working on, so that
the lawyer can explain you what are the patents employed. This is
-going to be expensive when you're done the lawyer will tell you
+going to be expensive and when you're done the lawyer will tell you
something like this: “If you do something in this area you are
almost sure to lose a lawsuit. If you do something in this area you
are in a substantial danger and if you really want to be safe you
better stay out of this area and of course there is a substantial
element of chance in the outcome of any lawsuit”. So now that
you have a predictable terrain for doing business what are you going
-to do.
+to do?
</p>
<p>
Well, you have three options to consider — you can try to avoid
-the patent, you can try to licence the patent, or you can try to
+the patent, you can try to license the patent, or you can try to
challenge its validity in court. Any one these three is sometimes a
viable alternative and sometimes not.
</p>
@@ -342,7 +342,7 @@
</p>
<p>
But in the 80's Compuserv defined an image format called GIF and used
-LCW compression algorithm in defining it. Well, of course once the
+LZW compression algorithm in defining it. Well, of course once the
uproar about the patent become known, people defined another image
format using a different compression algorithm. They used GZIP
algorithm and that format is called the PNG format which I suppose to
@@ -361,9 +361,9 @@
<p>
But what you want to do is make images that can be displayed by
Netscape, then he can't switch unless Netscape handles the other
-format, and it didn't. It took years, I think, before Netscape is
+format, and it didn't. It took years, I think, before Netscape
started to handle PNG format. So people essentially said “I
-can't switch, I just have't” and so the result was the society
+can't switch, I just haven't” and so the result was the society
had invested so much in this one format but the inertia was too great
for a switch even now there was another superior format available.
</p>
@@ -378,12 +378,12 @@
<p>
Now, sometimes a feature get patented. In that case, you can avoid
the patents by taking out that feature. In the late 80's the users of
-the word processor ZIRITE got a downgrade in mail. That word
+the word processor XyWrite got a downgrade in mail. That word
processor had a feature where you could define a short word or
sequence as an abbreviation. Whenever you type in that short sequence
and then a space it would turn into a longer expansion. You could
define this anywhere you write. Then somebody patented this and
-ZIRITE decided to deal with the patent by removing the feature. They
+XyWrite decided to deal with the patent by removing the feature. They
contacted me because in fact I had put a feature like that into the
original Emacs editor back in the 70's — many years before that
patent. So there was a chance that I could provide evidence would
@@ -399,12 +399,12 @@
<p>
Now you may have heard of Adobe Photoshop. We have a program called
the GIMP which is more powerful and general than Photoshop. But there
-is a one important feature that it doesn't have which is pantom colour
+is a one important feature that it doesn't have which is pantom color
matching. Which is very important for people who want actually print
the images on paper and get reliable results. This feature is omitted
because it is patented. And as a result is that the program for one
substantial class of users is crippled. If you look at programs today
-you see that they are often provide many features and what the users
+you see that they often provide many features and what the users
demand is features. If any important feature is missing, well, it is
easy to leave it out. But the results may be very bad.
</p>
@@ -419,19 +419,19 @@
interest. So, that is the possibility of avoiding the patents.
</p>
<p>
-Another possibility that is sometimes available is to licence the
-patent. Now the patent holder is not required to offer you licence
+Another possibility that is sometimes available is to license the
+patent. Now the patent holder is not required to offer you license
that's his. The patent holder can say “I am not licensing this,
you are just out of business. Period”.
</p>
<p>
In the League for Programming Freedom we heard in the early 90's from
-somebody whose family business was making casino games, computerised
+somebody whose family business was making casino games, computerized
of course, and he had then threatened by somebody who have a patent on
-a very broad category of computerised casino games. The patent
+a very broad category of computerized casino games. The patent
covered a network where there is more than one machine and each
machine support more than one type and they can display more than one
-game in progress at time. Now one thing you should realise is the
+game in progress at time. Now one thing you should realize is the
patent office thinks that is really brilliant. If you see that other
people implemented doing one thing and you decided to support two or
more. You know if they made a system that plays one game and if you
@@ -441,9 +441,9 @@
</p>
<p>
If he get with one computer and you do it with network having notebook
-computers thats an invention for them. They think that these steps
+computers that's an invention for them. They think that these steps
are really brilliant. Of course we in Computer Science know this is
-just a rule that we can generalise anything from one to more than one.
+just a rule that we can generalize anything from one to more than one.
So most obvious principle there is. So every time you write a
subroutine that's what you're doing. So this is one of the systematic
reasons why the patent system produces and then oppose patents that we
@@ -451,17 +451,17 @@
it's ridiculously obvious that they wouldn't be upheld by a court.
They may be legally valid despite the fact that are stupid. So he was
faced with this patent and the patent holder was not even offering him
-the chance to get a licence. “Shutdown!” — that's
+the chance to get a license. “Shutdown!” — that's
what the patent holder said, and that's what he eventually did. He
couldn't afford to fight it.
</p>
<p>
-However many patent holders will offer you chance of a licence. But
+However many patent holders will offer you chance of a license. But
it cost you dearly. The owners of the natural order recalculation
patent would be demanding five percent of the gross sales of every
spreadsheet and that I was told was the cheap pre-lawsuit price. If
you insisted on fighting over the matter they would be charging more.
-Now you could, I suppose, sign a licence like that for one patent, you
+Now you could, I suppose, sign a license like that for one patent, you
could do it for two, you could do it for three. For what I think
twenty different patents for your program and each patent holder wants
five percent of the gross sales. What I have said twenty — one
@@ -470,24 +470,24 @@
<p>
But actually business people tell you that two or three such patents
would be such a big burden that they would make the company fail. In
-practice, even if in theory, it might have the chance. So a licence
+practice, even if in theory, it might have the chance. So a license
for a patent is not necessarily a feasible thing to do and for us, the
Free Software developers were in the worst position because we can't
-even count the copies and most licences domain in the field for
+even count the copies and most licenses domain in the field for
copying so that's absolutely impossible for us to use one of these
-licences. You know, that if a licence charged one millionth part of a
+licenses. You know, that if a license charged one millionth part of a
rupee for each copy, we would be unable to comply because we can't
count the copies. The total amount of money that I might have in my
pocket, but I can't count it so I can't pay it. So we suffer some
special burden occasionally.
</p>
<p>
-But there are one kind of organisations for which licensing patents
+But there are one kind of organizations for which licensing patents
works very well and that is the large multinational corporations and
the reason is that they own many patents themselves and they use them
towards cross licensing. What does that mean? Well, essentially the
-only defence against patents is deterrence, you have to have patents
-of your own. Then you hopes that somebody points patented you, you
+only defense against patents is deterrence, you have to have patents
+of your own. Then you hope that somebody points patented you, you
will be able point patent back and say “don't sue me, because
I'll sue you”.
</p>
@@ -500,7 +500,7 @@
success. They might get a few patents that might get a patent that
points there and they might get a patent that points there. And then
if somebody over here threatens this company what are they going to
-do? They have a patent pointing over there, so they have no defence.
+do? They have a patent pointing over there, so they have no defense.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, sooner or later, somebody else who wander over there and
@@ -532,9 +532,9 @@
patent ”. But here is what IBM says: “well, gee, let's
look at your product, hmm, I have this patent, this patent and this
patent and this patent and this patent that your patent is violating.
-So how about a quick cross-licence?”. And the starving genius
+So how about a quick cross-license?”. And the starving genius
says “hmm, I haven't had enough food in my belly to fight these
-things, so I better give in” and so they sign a cross-licence
+things, so I better give in” and so they sign a cross-license
and now guess what.
</p>
<p>
@@ -545,15 +545,15 @@
can't do it but a big company can.
</p>
<p>
-So IBM brought an artcle it was in Stink magazine, I believe issue
+So IBM brought an article it was in Think magazine, I believe issue
number five of 1990, that's IBM's own magazine — an article
about IBM's patent portfolio. IBM said that they have two kinds of
-benefits form it's 9000 active U.S patents. One benefit was
-collecting royalties from licences. But the other benefit, the bigger
-benefit, was access to things patented by others. From mission to not
-to be attacked by others but with their patents through cross
-licensing. And the article said that the second benefit was an order
-of magnitude greater than the first.
+benefits form its 9000 active U.S patents. One benefit was collecting
+royalties from licenses. But the other benefit, the bigger benefit,
+was access to things patented by others. From mission to not to be
+attacked by others but with their patents through cross licensing.
+And the article said that the second benefit was an order of magnitude
+greater than the first.
</p>
<p>
In other words, the benefit of IBM is to make it things freely, not
@@ -572,10 +572,10 @@
patented by others, so what I said is the harm that the patent system
would do is ten times the benefit, on the average. Now, for IBM
though, this harm doesn't happen. Because IBM does have 9000 patents
-and thus forces licences and cross-licences and avoids the problem.
+and thus forces licenses and cross-licenses and avoids the problem.
But if you were small, then you can't avoid the problem that way and
you will really be facing ten time as much trouble as benefit.
-Anyway, this is why the big multinational corporations are in favour
+Anyway, this is why the big multinational corporations are in favor
of software patents and they are lobbying governments around the world
to adopt software patents and saying naive things like “this is
a new kind of monopoly for software developers that has to be good for
@@ -604,7 +604,7 @@
invalidating and sometimes there is not.
</p>
<p>
-You can't expect the courts to recognise that it is trivial, because
+You can't expect the courts to recognize that it is trivial, because
their standards are generally much lower than we would think are
sensible. In fact, in the United States, this is been a persistent
tendency. I saw a supreme court decision from something like 1954
@@ -675,9 +675,9 @@
he'll say “oh! you are just a thief, why can't you write
something original”. Well Beethoven had more than his share of
new musical ideas. But he used a lot of existing musical ideas. He
-had to, because that is the only way to make it recognisable. If you
-don't do that, people won't listen at all. Paebulus thought he was
-going to totally reinvent the language of music and he tried and
+had to, because that is the only way to make it recognizable. If you
+don't do that, people won't listen at all. Pierre Boulez thought he
+was going to totally reinvent the language of music and he tried and
nobody listens to it because it doesn't use all the ideas that they
were familiar with. So you have to use the old ideas that other
people have thought of.
@@ -690,7 +690,7 @@
totally reinvent the field from scratch. We have to build on previous
work to make progress and that is exactly what the patent system is
prohibits us from doing. We have to provide features that the users
-are accustomed to and can recognise where they'll find our software
+are accustomed to and can recognize where they'll find our software
just too difficult to use no matter how good it is.
</p>
<p>
@@ -726,7 +726,7 @@
and the owners hated each other. So nobody could get a license to use
all these patents. Well, the US Government decided that this was an
unacceptable state of affairs and essentially, paid those patent
-holders a lump sum and said we have nationalised these patents and now
+holders a lump sum and said we have nationalized these patents and now
everybody go make airplanes for us. But the amount to which this
happens, the frequency and the seriousness of it varies according to
how many different ideas go in one product. It varies according to
@@ -734,7 +734,7 @@
in that question, software is at the extreme.
</p>
<p>
-Its not unusual of for a few people working for a couple of years to
+It's not unusual of for a few people working for a couple of years to
write a program that could have a million parts in it, different parts
which is maybe, say 300,000 lines of code. To design a physical
system that has a million different parts, that's a major project,
@@ -749,7 +749,7 @@
chemicals, you have to face the fact that these physical substances
will do what they do, not what they are supposed to do. We in
software don't have that problem and that makes it tremendously
-easier. We are designing a collection of idealised mathematical parts
+easier. We are designing a collection of idealized mathematical parts
which have definitions. They do exactly what they are defined to do.
</p>
<p>
@@ -829,7 +829,7 @@
<p>
We have to walk a long distance through the mine field where they they
only have to walk a few feet through the minefield. So its much more
-of a dangerous system for us. Now, you have to realise that the
+of a dangerous system for us. Now, you have to realize that the
extensible purpose of the patent system is to promote progress. This
is something that is often forgotten because the companies that
benefit from patents like to distract you from it. They like to give
@@ -838,7 +838,7 @@
</p>
<p>
Patent system says, the goal is to promote progress for the society.
-By encouraging certain behaviour like publishing new ideas and after
+By encouraging certain behavior like publishing new ideas and after
certain — originally that was fairly short — time,
everyone could use them. Of course there is a certain price that the
society pays as well and we have to ask the question which is bigger
@@ -955,7 +955,7 @@
<p>
That's the solution I propose to the US, but it could be used in other
countries as well. Now, one of the tremendous dangers facing most
-countries today is the World Trade Organisation, which sets up a
+countries today is the World Trade Organization, which sets up a
system of corporate regulated trade — not free trade as its
proponents like to call it, but corporate regulated trade. It
replaces regulation of trade by governments that are somewhat
@@ -972,7 +972,7 @@
consequences for physical system going on. And the software vector
doesn't do that, doesn't have to be, in the domains that the patents
can cover. So at least you don't have to worry about the Word Trade
-Organisation causing problems here despite the tremendous problems
+Organization causing problems here despite the tremendous problems
they cause in other areas of life.
</p>
<p>
@@ -986,11 +986,11 @@
appeals court and ever since then there was software patents.
</p>
<p>
-But when Europe started to consider officially authorising software
+But when Europe started to consider officially authorizing software
patents a few years ago, public opposition started to rise and became
so strong that the politicians and the parties began paying attention
to it. And started saying that they were against it. In fact two
-attempts to authorise software patents have been blocked already in
+attempts to authorize software patents have been blocked already in
Europe. The French Minister of Industry says that the software
patents would be a disaster and under no circumstances should they be
allowed in France. Over the German political parties have taken a
@@ -1080,7 +1080,7 @@
is that any business could find itself, you know, once they decide
“we're going to automate the way we carry out our
procedures” but now they can get sued with software patents. So
-if the businesses only knew they would be organising through things
+if the businesses only knew they would be organizing through things
like the chamber of commerce to demand opposition to software patents.
</p>
<p>
@@ -1110,7 +1110,7 @@
So the South African Government was going to issue compulsory license
which even under GATT is allowed to do, but US Government threatened
economic sanctions. Vice President Gore was directly involved with
-this and then he'd be facing the presidential election he realised
+this and then he'd be facing the presidential election he realized
that this was going to look bad and so he dropped out of the effort.
But this kind of the thing is what the US Government does all the time
with regard to patents and copyrights. They only mind if people get
@@ -1126,7 +1126,7 @@
Please talk with all executives of businesses — any kind of
businesses — about this issue. Make sure that they understand
the extend of the problem they face and they think of going to
-business organisations to have them lobby against software patents.
+business organizations to have them lobby against software patents.
</p>
<h3>Questions from the audience</h3>
@@ -1152,10 +1152,10 @@
<dd><b>A</b>: No. What I said is the harm that would had happened to
them is 10 times the benefit, but this harm is purely theoretical, it
-doesn't occur. You see, they avoid it through crosslicensing. So in
+doesn't occur. You see, they avoid it through cross-licensing. So in
fact, the harm does not happen.</dd>
-<dt><b>Q</b>: But it is only neutralised, they don't really benefit?</dt>
+<dt><b>Q</b>: But it is only neutralized, they don't really benefit?</dt>
<dd><b>A</b>: Well, they do, you see, because, the bare aspect they
avoid through cross licensing and meanwhile they do collect money from
@@ -1166,11 +1166,11 @@
<dt><b>Q</b>: But for that something will oppose this movement against
patents?</dt>
-<dd><b>A</b>: Right, IBM favours software patents. I had trouble one,
+<dd><b>A</b>: Right, IBM favors software patents. I had trouble one,
I couldn't hear all the words in your sentence. I don't know whether
there was a ‘not’ in it. I couldn't tell, there are two
diametrically opposite meanings for what you have said, so what you
-can do is make sure that the situation is clear. IBM favours software
+can do is make sure that the situation is clear. IBM favors software
patents, IBM thinks it stands to gain a lot from software patents. So
what it stands to gain is that the IBM and the other very big
companies would basically control software development, because it
@@ -1178,7 +1178,7 @@
<p>
To develop nontrivial programs you're going to have to infringe
patents of IBMs. Now if you are big and often lucky enough, you might
-have some patents of your own and make IBM crosslicense with
+have some patents of your own and make IBM cross-license with
you. Otherwise you are completely at their mercy and you have to hope
that they just let you pay the money.</p>
<p>
@@ -1193,13 +1193,13 @@
supreme court and they, they didn't judge it as a public policy
question, they judged it in terms of what did the law say.</dd>
-<dt><b>Q</b>: So was it not the realisation that …</dt>
+<dt><b>Q</b>: So was it not the realization that …</dt>
<dd><b>A</b>: Sorry, I can't … could you try to pronounce your
consonants more clearly, I'm having trouble understanding the
words.</dd>
-<dt><b>Q</b>: So was it not the realisation that copyright is
+<dt><b>Q</b>: So was it not the realization that copyright is
notoriously weak for protecting software?</dt>
<dd><b>A</b>: Copyright is not only what?</dd>
@@ -1212,10 +1212,10 @@
<p>
Most programmers don't agree with you.</p></dd>
-<dt><b>Q</b>: So when you are saying that you are not favouring
+<dt><b>Q</b>: So when you are saying that you are not favoring
protection of software and you yourself is giving General Public
-Licence, where do you get that power to issue General Public
-Licence?</dt>
+License, where do you get that power to issue General Public
+License?</dt>
<dd><b>A</b>: OK, you are asking questions about copyright and Free
Software which is not the topic now, I will accept questions about
@@ -1308,7 +1308,7 @@
intellectual property rights?</dt>
<dd><b>A</b>: As I said in the beginning, it is foolish even to think
-about that topic, that topic is an overgeneralisation. It lumps
+about that topic, that topic is an overgeneralization. It lumps
together totally different things like copyrights and patents and so
any opinion about co-intellectual property is a foolish one. I don't
have an opinion about intellectual property, I have opinions about
@@ -1336,7 +1336,7 @@
<dt><b>Q</b>: Let me complete sir, if that particular intellectual
property right is not protected, it may impede the investment, and
-this impedement…</dt>
+this impediment…</dt>
<dd><b>A</b>: This generalistic thinking is so simplistic, it's
totally stupid. It makes no sense at all. There is no principle of
@@ -1352,20 +1352,20 @@
with the physical property rights, they are totally different. What
do you say extend “this concept”? Which is this
“concept”? The idea that the term “intellectual
-property” is a generalisation that leads you into simplistic
+property” is a generalization that leads you into simplistic
thinking. Should we apply that to physical property? No, they are
totally different. They have nothing in common.</dd>
<dt><b>Q</b>: So the basis under which this intellectual property is
-protected is “protect the labour”, “intellectual
-labour”?</dt>
+protected is “protect the labor”, “intellectual
+labor”?</dt>
<dd><b>A</b>: No! No, you are totally wrong, you are totally wrong.
The purpose of you have been brainwashed, you have been listening to
the propaganda of the companies that want to have these monopolies.
If you ask what legal scholars say is the basis of these systems.
They say that their attempts, for copyrights and for patents, their
-attempts to manipulate the behaviour of people to get benefit for the
+attempts to manipulate the behavior of people to get benefit for the
public. Trademarks are a different issue, I think the issues for
trademark are completely different. So you are making an
overgeneralisation also.</dd>
@@ -1382,7 +1382,7 @@
occasionally it causes a lot of troubles.</dd>
<dt><b>Q</b>: Don't you think that the same kind of monopoly is
-created in favour of a party when he owns a physical property?</dt>
+created in favor of a party when he owns a physical property?</dt>
<dd><b>A</b>: I'm sorry, I can't hear you.</dd>
@@ -1393,7 +1393,7 @@
<dd><b>A</b>: Physical property can only be in one place at a time,
you know, only one person can sit in a chair at a time in the normal
way. You know these are totally different issues, you know trying to
-generalise to the utmost is a foolish thing to do, you are doing with
+generalize to the utmost is a foolish thing to do, you are doing with
complicated words that have many, many, many complicated details and
you are asking us to ignore all these details and you are doing with
words that have complicated effects in various fields and you are
@@ -1438,7 +1438,7 @@
benefit in this five-year software monopolies but it would be much
better in the current situation. So if you found the government
prepared to make this deal, well, I would say, we should take it. But,
-but we have to realise, though, that the first step is to abolish
+but we have to realize, though, that the first step is to abolish
software patents strictly speaking, and that has to be part of this
deal.</p></dd>
@@ -1564,7 +1564,7 @@
that, you misunderstood what the solution is. The solution is that if
I'm using in developing the software on general purpose machines then
nobody can sue me for patent infringement. So yes, somebody could get
-a patent and may be he could sue others who are doing specialised
+a patent and may be he could sue others who are doing specialized
things which involve particular hardware. But they couldn't sue
me.</dd>
@@ -1604,7 +1604,7 @@
<dd><b>A</b>: Not yet. In fact, the European Commission itself is
divided. One of the agencies — the one which unfortunately is
the lead agency on this issue — has been won over by
-multinationals and is in favour of software patents and then the
+multinationals and is in favor of software patents and then the
agency that's trusted to encourage software development is against
them, and so they're trying to work against it. So somebody who want
to get in touch with the official incharge of the agency that is
@@ -1647,7 +1647,7 @@
<p>
The point is, therefore, let me try not to hand them that opportunity.
You know, since we don't have a government agency handing out guns to
-people on the steet we should not have a government agency handing out
+people on the street we should not have a government agency handing out
software patents to people on the street either.</p></dd>
<dt><b>Q</b>: Being an advocate of this non-patency, have you ever
@@ -1695,7 +1695,7 @@
<dt><b>Volunteer</b>: There's a question from a gentleman at the back:
If the multinational companies that produce hardware, like Intel,
coming to a contract coming to a contract with big software companies
-to restrict Free Software by changing the microprocessor pattents, how
+to restrict Free Software by changing the microprocessor patents, how
will you overcome such a hazard?</dt>
<dd><b>A</b>: I see very little danger of that. Intel recently
@@ -1779,7 +1779,7 @@
<p>
They are also developing many non-free programs to make them run with
the GNU/Linux system and that is not a contribution. And they are
-publicising the system, well, it's not a primary contribution, but it
+publicizing the system, well, it's not a primary contribution, but it
does help. You know, having more user is not our primary goal. But
it's nice if more people would try our software, so that does help,
but then they're mistakenly calling this Linux which is not quite
@@ -1894,7 +1894,7 @@
<dt><b>Q</b>: Yes sir. In that context, I feel particularly, me as
such, I feel very hurt when I see the so called interaction among
programmers today. Because many of us are very good programmers but
-we look at each other in different colours depending upon the tools we
+we look at each other in different colors depending upon the tools we
use — “hey, he's a windows guy”, “hey, he's a
GNU/Linux guy”, “hey, he's into Solaris systems”,
“he's a network programmer”. And unfortunately most of
@@ -1940,7 +1940,7 @@
created specifically to liberate people and to encourage them to
collaborate. So to sum it then, it's not like where you born in this
country or that country, no this is like your choice of politics. And
-it does make to criticise people for their choices about important
+it does make to criticize people for their choices about important
issues.
<p>
So, I would say, a person who's using Windows, well, either he's
@@ -1954,7 +1954,7 @@
<p>
But this is, in this one case it is, somewhat alike political choice
with political consequences for society and that's exactly what makes
-sense to criticise people.</p></dd>
+sense to criticize people.</p></dd>
<dt><b>Q</b>: Sorry to continue again on this, but I'm a little
persistent about this. It's…</dt>
@@ -1999,7 +1999,7 @@
occasionally it happens. But not very often. Now, you see that the
reason is that the users want interoperability and with Free Software
the users are ultimately in control and what they want they tend to
-get. The Free Software developers realise that they had better
+get. The Free Software developers realize that they had better
— if they are going to make incompatible changes they are likely
to make users unhappy and their versions are not going to be used. So
they generally draw the obvious conclusion and pay a lot of attention
@@ -2024,12 +2024,12 @@
one version at any given time.</dd>
<dt><b>Q</b>: Sir, don't you think we will have to implement an
-organisation which will take into consideration all these updations
+organization which will take into consideration all these updations
and it will just provide a single software which will have all the
updations right.</dt>
<dd><b>A</b>: I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Shouldn't we have an
-organisation that would do something with all these versions …
+organization that would do something with all these versions …
but i don't know what.</dd>
<dt><b>Q</b>: Like, say I have developed a version of…</dt>
@@ -2045,7 +2045,7 @@
slowly.</dd>
<dt><b>Q</b>: Thank you sir. Sir the thing is that don't you feel
-that we require an organisation which will just perform a number of
+that we require an organization which will just perform a number of
updations together and make available a software which will club all
the updations until that date?</dt>
@@ -2054,7 +2054,7 @@
<dt><b>Q</b>: Yes Sir.</dt>
-<dd><b>A</b>: I will tell you a lot of organisations are doing that;
+<dd><b>A</b>: I will tell you a lot of organizations are doing that;
in fact every one of the GNU/Linux distributions is exactly that.
Debian does that, Red Hat does that… We to some extent do that
also for the GNU packages. We work on making sure they work
@@ -2071,18 +2071,18 @@
<dd><b>A</b>: I do not own any patents. Now, I have considered the
possibility of applying for patents to use them as part of a mutual
-strategic defence alliance.</dd>
+strategic defense alliance.</dd>
<dt><b>Q</b>: Do you mean to say that if I have twenty patents with
me, I donate it to the FSF and you maintain it for me?</dt>
-<dd><b>A</b>: Well, not the FSF, it would be a separate specialised
-organisation that would exist specifically so that we would all
-contribute are patents and that organisations would use all of these
+<dd><b>A</b>: Well, not the FSF, it would be a separate specialized
+organization that would exist specifically so that we would all
+contribute are patents and that organizations would use all of these
patents to shelter anyone who wishes shelter. So anyone can join the
-organisation, even somebody who has no patents. And that person gets
-shelter of this organisation. But then we all do try to get patents
-so as to make the organisation stronger so it can protect us all
+organization, even somebody who has no patents. And that person gets
+shelter of this organization. But then we all do try to get patents
+so as to make the organization stronger so it can protect us all
better. That is the idea, but so far no one has been able to get this
started. It's not an easy thing to do, and part of the reason is that
applying for the patent is very expensive. And a lot of work as
@@ -2143,7 +2143,7 @@
<p>
Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2008/07/19 15:41:53 $
+$Date: 2008/07/20 20:13:34 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>