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Index: danger-of-software-patents.pot
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+# SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
+# Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+# This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package.
+# FIRST AUTHOR <address@hidden>, YEAR.
+#
+#, fuzzy
+msgid ""
+msgstr ""
+"Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n"
+"POT-Creation-Date: 2009-11-13 04:27-0500\n"
+"PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
+"Last-Translator: FULL NAME <address@hidden>\n"
+"Language-Team: LANGUAGE <address@hidden>\n"
+"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
+"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=CHARSET\n"
+"Content-Transfer-Encoding: ENCODING"
+
+# type: Content of: <title>
+msgid "The Danger of Software Patents - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <h2>
+msgid "The Danger of Software Patents"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <p>
+msgid "by <a href=\"http://www.stallman.org/\";>Richard Stallman</a>"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <p>
+msgid ""
+"This is the transcript of a talk presented by Richard M. Stallman on 8 "
+"October 2009 at Victoria University of Wellington."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dt>
+#:     
+msgid "SF:"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"My name is Susy Frankel and on behalf of myself and Meredith Kolsky Lewis, "
+"I'd like to welcome you to this seminar hosted by the New Zealand Centre for "
+"International Economic Law.  Brenda Chawner, who is part of the Victoria "
+"University School of Information Management, rather than the Centre I just "
+"named being part of the Law Faculty, is really responsible for bringing "
+"Richard Stallman back to New Zealand and hosting his tour of New Zealand, "
+"including this stop here in Wellington tonight.  She's unfortunately unable "
+"to be with us at this moment because she's doing what we do in universities "
+"which is teach."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"So it's my pleasure to welcome you to the lecture &ldquo;The Danger of "
+"Software Patents&rdquo;.  Richard Stallman has a suite of lectures that he "
+"offers, and after discussion with Brenda, I chose this topic precisely "
+"because for the first real time in New Zealand history, we have a somewhat "
+"prolonged, but important debate about patent law reform, and many of you in "
+"the room are responsible for the debate relating to software patents.  So it "
+"seemed very topical, very timely.  So thank you, Richard, for making that "
+"offer."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Richard Stallman needs little introduction.  Nonetheless, for some of you "
+"who have not heard of him previously, he has launched the development of the "
+"GNU operating system.  I had never heard GNU said before, and I went online "
+"to YouTube (where would we be be without YouTube)&hellip;"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dt>
+#:    
+msgid "RMS:"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Oh, you shouldn't recommend YouTube, because they distribute in a patented "
+"video format."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Good point.  I only recommend it for the point that I thought do you say G N "
+"U or GNU?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "Wikipedia says that."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Yes, but live I heard you say it on YouTube.  But nonetheless, the important "
+"point is that it's not proprietorial.  But the most interesting point is "
+"that Richard has received many honors for his work.  My favorite, and "
+"therefore the one that I'm going to mention, is the Takeda Award for Social "
+"and Economic Betterment, and I imagine we're going to hear a lot of that "
+"tonight, so join me in welcoming Richard."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"First of all, I'd like to mention one of the reasons why I'm drinking this "
+"is there's a worldwide boycott of Coca-Cola Company for murdering union "
+"organizers in Colombia.  Look at the site <a "
+"href=\"http://killercoke.org\";>killercoke.org</a>, and they're not talking "
+"about the effects of drinking the product, after the same might be true of "
+"many other products.  It's murder.  So before you buy any drink product, "
+"look at the fine print and see if it's made by Coca-Cola Company."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"I'm most known for starting the free software movement and leading "
+"development of the GNU operating system, although most of the people who use "
+"the system mistakenly believe it's Linux and think it was started by "
+"somebody else a decade later.  But I'm not going to be speaking about any of "
+"that today.  I'm here to talk about a legal danger to all software "
+"developers, distributors, and users, the danger of patents on computational "
+"ideas, computational techniques, an idea for something you can do on a "
+"computer."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Now, to understand this issue, the first thing you need to realize is that "
+"patent law has nothing to do with copyright law.  They're totally "
+"different.  Whatever you learn about one of them, you can be sure it doesn't "
+"apply to the other.  So, for example, any time a person makes a statement "
+"about &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo; that's spreading confusion, "
+"because it's lumping together not only these two laws, but also at least a "
+"dozen others, and they're all different, and the result is any statement "
+"which purports to be about &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo; is pure "
+"confusion.  Either the person making the statement is confused, or the "
+"person is trying to confuse others.  But either way, whether it's accidental "
+"or malicious, it's confusion.  Protect yourself from this confusion by "
+"rejecting any statement which makes use of that term.  The only way to make "
+"thoughtful comments and think clear thoughts about any one of these laws is "
+"to distinguish it first from all the others, and talk or think about one "
+"particular law, so that we can understand what it actually does and then "
+"form conclusions about it.  So I'll be talking about patent law, and what "
+"happens in those countries which have allowed patent law to restrict "
+"software."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"So, what does a patent do? A patent is an explicit, government-issued "
+"monopoly on using a certain idea, and in the patent there's a part called "
+"the claims, which describe exactly what you're not allowed to do, although "
+"they're written in a way you probably can't understand.  It's a struggle to "
+"figure out what those prohibitions actually mean, and they may go on for "
+"many pages of fine print.  So the patent typically lasts for 20 years, which "
+"is a fairly long time in our field.  Twenty years ago there was no World "
+"Wide Web, a tremendous amount of the use of computers goes on in an area "
+"which wasn't even possible to propose 20 years ago.  So of course everything "
+"that people do on it is something that's new since 20 years ago.  It may be, "
+"it's at least in some aspect is new.  So if patents had been applied for "
+"we'd be prohibited from doing all of it, and we may be prohibited from doing "
+"all of it in countries that have been foolish enough to have such a policy."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Most of the time, when people describe the function of the patent system, "
+"they have a vested interest in the system.  They may be patent lawyers, or "
+"they may work in the Patent Office, or they may be in the patent office of a "
+"megacorporation, so they want you to like the system.  The Economist once "
+"referred to the patent system as &ldquo;a time-consuming lottery&rdquo;.  "
+"And if you've ever seen publicity for a lottery, you understand how it "
+"works.  They dwell on the very unlikely probability of winning, and they "
+"don't talk about the overwhelming likelihood of losing.  And in this way, "
+"they intentionally and systematically present a biased picture of what's "
+"likely to happen to you, without actually lying about any particular fact.  "
+"And it's the same way for the publicity for the patent system.  They talk "
+"about what it's like to walk down the street with a patent in your pocket, "
+"or first of all, what it's like to get a patent, then what it's like to have "
+"a patent in your pocket, and every so often you can pull it out and point it "
+"at somebody and say &ldquo;give me your money&rdquo;.  To compensate for "
+"their bias, I'm going to describe it from the other side, the victim side.  "
+"What it's like for people who want to develop or distribute or run "
+"software.  You have to worry that any day someone might walk up to you and "
+"point a patent at you and say give me your money.  If you want to develop "
+"software in a country that allows software patents, and you want to work "
+"with patent law, what will you have to do?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"You could try to make a list of all the ideas that one might be able to find "
+"in the program that you're about to write, aside from the fact that you "
+"don't know that when you start writing the program.  Even after you finish "
+"writing the program you wouldn't be able to make such a list, and the reason "
+"is, even after you designed the program, and in the process you conceived of "
+"it in one particular way, you've got a mental structure to apply to your "
+"design, and because of that, it will block you from seeing other structures "
+"that somebody might use to understand the same program, because you're not "
+"coming to it &ldquo;fresh&rdquo;.  You already designed it with one "
+"structure in mind.  Someone else who sees it for the first time might see a "
+"different structure, which involves different ideas, and it would be hard "
+"for you to see what those other ideas are.  But nonetheless they're "
+"implemented in your program, and those patents could prohibit your program, "
+"if those ideas are patented."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"For instance, suppose there were graphical idea patents and you wanted to "
+"draw a square.  Well, you would realize that if there was a patent on a "
+"bottom edge, it would prohibit your square.  You could put &ldquo;bottom "
+"edge&rdquo; on the list of all ideas implemented in your drawing.  But you "
+"might not realize that somebody else with a patent on bottom corners could "
+"sue you easily also, because he could take you drawing and turn it by 45 "
+"degrees and now your square is like this, and it has a bottom corner.  So "
+"you couldn't make a list of all the ideas which, if patented, could prohibit "
+"your program.  So what you might try to do is find out all the ideas that "
+"are patented that might be in your program.  Now you can't do that actually, "
+"because patent applications are kept secret for at least eighteen months, "
+"and the result is the Patent Office could be considering now whether to "
+"issue a patent, and they won't tell you.  And this is not just an academic, "
+"theoretical possibility, that could happen."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"For instance, in 1984 the Compress program was written, a program for "
+"compressing files using the <acronym title=\"Lempel-Ziv-Welch\"> "
+"LZW</acronym> data compression algorithm, and at that time there was no "
+"patent on that algorithm for compressing files.  The author found, got the "
+"algorithm from an article in a journal.  That was when we thought that the "
+"purpose of computer science journals was to publish algorithms so people "
+"could use them.  He wrote this program, he released it, and in 1985 a patent "
+"was issued on that algorithm.  But the patent holder was cunning and didn't "
+"immediately go around telling people to stop using it.  The patent holder "
+"figured &ldquo;let's let everybody dig their grave deeper&rdquo;.  But a few "
+"years later they started threatening people; it became clear we couldn't use "
+"Compress, so I asked for people to suggest other algorithms we could use for "
+"compressing files, and somebody wrote and said I developed another data "
+"compression algorithm that works better, I've written a program, I'd like to "
+"give it to you.  So we got ready to release it, and a week before it was "
+"ready to be released, I read in the New York Times weekly patent column, "
+"which I rarely saw, it's a couple of times a year I might see it, but just "
+"by luck I saw that someone had gotten a patent for &ldquo;inventing a new "
+"method of compressing data&rdquo;, and so I said we had better look at this, "
+"and sure enough it covered the program we were about to release.  But it "
+"could have been worse, the patent could have been issued a year later, or "
+"two years later, or three years later, or five years later.  Anyway, someone "
+"else came up with another, even better compression algorithm, which was used "
+"in the program <tt>gzip</tt>, and just about everybody who wanted to "
+"compress files switched to <tt>gzip</tt>, so it sounds like a happy ending.  "
+"But you'll hear more later.  It's not entirely so happy."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"So, you can't find out about the patents that are being considered even "
+"though they may prohibit your work once they come out, but you can find out "
+"about the already issued patents.  They're all published by the Patent "
+"Office.  The problem is you can't read them all, because there are too many "
+"of them.  In the US I believe there are hundreds of thousands of thousands "
+"of software patents.  Keeping track of them would be a tremendous job.  So "
+"you're going to have to search for relevant patents.  And you'll find a lot "
+"of relevant patents, but you won't necessarily find them all."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"For instance, in the 80s and 90s, there was a patent on &ldquo;natural order "
+"recalculation&rdquo; in spreadsheets.  Somebody once asked me for a copy of "
+"it, so I looked in our computer file which lists the patent numbers, and "
+"then I pulled out the drawer to get the paper copy of this patent and "
+"Xeroxed it and sent it to him.  And when he got it, he said &ldquo;I think "
+"you sent me the wrong patent.  This is something about compilers.&rdquo; So "
+"I thought maybe our file has the wrong number in it.  I looked in it again, "
+"and sure enough it's a method for compiling formulas into object code.  So I "
+"started to read it to see if it was indeed the wrong patent.  I read the "
+"claims, and sure enough it was the natural order recalculation patent, but "
+"it didn't use those terms, it didn't use the term spreadsheet.  In fact, "
+"what the patent prohibited was dozens of different ways of implementing "
+"topological sort.  All the ways they could think of.  But I don't think it "
+"used the term &ldquo;topological sort&rdquo;."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"So if you had tried to find, if you were writing a spreadsheet and you tried "
+"to find relevant patents by searching, you might have found a lot of "
+"patents, but you wouldn't have found this one until somebody, you told "
+"somebody &ldquo;Oh, I'm working on a spreadsheet&rdquo; and he said "
+"&ldquo;Oh, did you know those other companies that are making spreadsheets "
+"are getting sued?&rdquo;.  Then you would have found out.  Well, you can't "
+"find all the patents by searching, but you can find a lot of them and then "
+"you've got to figure out what they mean, which is hard, because patents are "
+"written in tortuous legal language which is very hard to understand the real "
+"meaning of, so you're going to have to spend a lot of time talking with an "
+"expensive lawyer explaining what you want to do in order to find out from "
+"the lawyer whether you're allowed to do it.  Now, even the patent holders "
+"often can't recognize just what their patents mean."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"For instance, there's somebody named Paul Heckel who released a program for "
+"displaying a lot of data on a small screen.  And based on a couple of the "
+"ideas in that program he got a couple of patents.  Now I once tried to find "
+"a simple way to describe what claim 1 of one of those patents covered.  I "
+"found that I couldn't find any simpler way of saying it than what was in the "
+"patent itself, and that sentence, I couldn't manage to keep it all in my "
+"mind at once, no matter how hard I tried.  And Heckel couldn't follow it "
+"either, because when he saw HyperCard, all he noticed was it was nothing "
+"like his program, it didn't occur to him that the way his patent was written "
+"it might prohibit HyperCard, but his lawyer had that idea, so he threatened "
+"Apple, and then he threatened Apple's customers, and eventually Apple made a "
+"settlement with him which is secret, so we don't know who really won.  And "
+"this is just an illustration of how hard it is for anybody to understand "
+"what a patent does or doesn't prohibit.  In fact, I once gave this speech "
+"and Heckel was in the audience, and at this point he jumped up and said "
+"&ldquo;That's not true, I just didn't know the scope of my "
+"protection.&rdquo; And I said &ldquo;Yeah, that's what I said,&rdquo; at "
+"which point he sat down and that was the end of my experience being heckled "
+"by Heckel.  If I had said no, he probably would have found a way to argue "
+"with me.  Anyway, so, after a long, expensive conversation with a lawyer, "
+"the lawyer will give you an answer like this:"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><blockquote><p>
+msgid ""
+"If you do something in this area you're almost certain to lose a lawsuit.  "
+"If you do something in this area there's a considerable chance of losing a "
+"lawsuit, and if you really want to be safe you've got to stay out of this "
+"area, but there's a sizable element of chance in the outcome of any lawsuit."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"So now that you have clear, predictable rules for doing business, what are "
+"you actually going to do? Well, there are three things that you could do to "
+"deal with the issue of any particular patent.  One is to avoid it, another "
+"is to get a license for it, and the third is to invalidate it.  So I'll talk "
+"about these one by one."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"First, there's the possibility of avoiding the patent, which means don't "
+"implement what it prohibits.  Of course, if it's hard to tell what it "
+"prohibits, it might be hard to tell what would suffice to avoid it.  A "
+"couple of years ago Kodak sued Sun using a patent for something having to do "
+"with object-oriented programming.  And Sun didn't think it was infringing "
+"that patent.  But the court decided it was, and when other people look at "
+"that patent they haven't the faintest idea whether that decision was right "
+"or not.  No one can tell what that patent does or doesn't cover.  But Sun "
+"had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars because of violating a completely "
+"incomprehensible law.  But sometimes you can tell what you need to avoid, "
+"and sometimes what you need to avoid is an algorithm."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"For instance, I saw a patent for something like the fast Fourier transform, "
+"but it ran twice as fast.  Well, if the ordinary FFT is fast enough for your "
+"application then that's an easy way to avoid this other one.  And most of "
+"the time that would work.  Once in a while you might be trying to do "
+"something where it runs doing FFT all the time, and it's just barely fast "
+"enough using the faster algorithm, and then you can't avoid it, although "
+"maybe you could wait a couple of years for a faster computer.  But that's "
+"going to be rare.  Most of the time that patent will be easy to avoid.  On "
+"the other hand, a patent on an algorithm may be impossible to avoid.  "
+"Consider the LZW data compression algorithm.  Well, as I explained we found "
+"a better data compression algorithm, and everybody who wanted to compress "
+"files switched to the program <tt>gzip</tt> which used the better "
+"algorithm.  And the reason is, if you just want to compress the file and "
+"uncompress it later, you can tell people to use this program to uncompress "
+"it, then you can use any program with any algorithm, and you only care how "
+"well it works.  But LZW is used for other things too, for instance the "
+"PostScript language specifies operators for LZW compression and LZW "
+"uncompression.  It's no use having another, better algorithm, because it "
+"makes a different format of data.  They're not interoperable.  If you "
+"compress it with the <tt>gzip</tt> algorithm, you won't be able to "
+"uncompress it using LZW.  So no matter how good your other algorithm is, and "
+"no matter what it is, it just doesn't enable you to implement PostScript "
+"according to the specs.  But I noticed that users rarely ask their printers "
+"to compress things.  Generally the only thing they want their printers to do "
+"is to uncompress, and I also noticed that both of the patents on the LZW "
+"algorithm were written in such a way that if your system can only uncompress "
+"it's not covered, it's not forbidden.  These patents were written so that "
+"they covered compression, and they had other claims covering both "
+"compression and uncompression, but there was no claim covering only "
+"uncompression.  So I realized that if we implement only the uncompression "
+"for LZW, we would be safe, and although it would not satisfy the "
+"specification, it would please the users sufficiently.  It would do what "
+"they actually needed.  So that's how we barely squeaked by avoiding that "
+"patent, the two patents."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Now there is <tt>gif</tt> format, for images.  That uses the LZW algorithm "
+"also.  It didn't take long for people to define another image format, called "
+"<tt>png</tt>, which stands for &ldquo;<tt>png</tt>'s not "
+"<tt>gif</tt>&rdquo;, and I think it uses the <tt>gzip</tt> algorithm, and I "
+"think we started saying to people don't use <tt>gif</tt> format, it's "
+"dangerous, switch to <tt>png</tt>, and the users said well, maybe some day, "
+"but the browsers don't implement it yet, and the browser may implement it "
+"someday, but there's not much demand from users.  Well, it's pretty obvious "
+"what's going on.  <tt>gif</tt> was a de facto standard.  In effect, asking "
+"people to switch to a different format, instead of their de facto standard, "
+"is like asking everyone in New Zealand to speak Hungarian.  People will say "
+"&ldquo;Well, yeah, I'll learn to speak it after everyone else does&rdquo;.  "
+"And so we never succeeded in asking people to stop using <tt>gif</tt>, even "
+"though one of those patent holders at least was going around to operators of "
+"web sites, threatening to sue them unless they could prove that all of the "
+"<tt>gif</tt> on the site were made with authorized, licensed software.  So "
+"<tt>gif</tt> was a dangerous trap for a large part of our community.  Now we "
+"thought we had an alternative to <tt>gif</tt> format, namely <tt>jpeg</tt>, "
+"but then somebody said &ldquo;I was just looking through my portfolio of "
+"patents,&rdquo; I think it was somebody that just bought patents and used "
+"them to threaten people, and he said &ldquo;and I found that one of them "
+"covers <tt>jpeg</tt> format&rdquo;.  Well, <tt>jpeg</tt> was not a de facto "
+"standard, it's an official standard, issued by a standards committee, and "
+"the committee had a lawyer too.  Their lawyer said he didn't think that this "
+"patent actually covered <tt>jpeg</tt> format.  So who's right? Well, this "
+"patent holder sued a bunch of companies, and if there was a decision, it "
+"would have said who was right, but I haven't heard about a decision, I'm not "
+"sure if there ever was one.  I think they settled, and the settlement is "
+"almost certainly secret, which means that it didn't tell us anything about "
+"who's right."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"So these are fairly lightweight cases, one patent on <tt>jpeg</tt>, two "
+"patents on the LZW algorithm used in <tt>gif</tt>.  Now you might wonder how "
+"come there are two patents on the same algorithm? It's not supposed to "
+"happen, but it did, and the reason is that the patent examiners can't "
+"possibly take the time to study every pair of things they might need to "
+"study and compare, because they're not allowed to take that much time.  And "
+"because algorithms are just mathematics, there's no way you can narrow down "
+"which ones, which applications and patents you need to compare.  You see, in "
+"physical engineering fields, they can use the physical nature of what's "
+"going on to narrow things down.  For instance, in chemical engineering, they "
+"can say what are the substances going in, what are the substances coming "
+"out, and if two different applications are different in that way, then "
+"they're not the same process so you don't need to worry.  But math can be "
+"represented, the same math can be represented in ways that can look very "
+"different, and until you study them both together, you don't realize they're "
+"talking about the same thing.  And, because of this, it's quite common to "
+"see the same thing get patented multiple times.  Remember that program that "
+"was killed by a patent before we released it, well, that algorithm got "
+"patented twice also.  In one little field we've seen it happen in two cases "
+"that we ran into, the same algorithm being patented twice.  Well, I think my "
+"explanation tells you why that happens."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"But one or two patents is a lightweight case.  What about <tt>mpeg2</tt>, "
+"the video format? I saw a list of over 70 patents covering that, and the "
+"negotiations to arrange a way for somebody to license all those patents took "
+"longer than developing the standard itself.  The <tt>jpeg</tt> committee "
+"wanted to develop a follow on standard, and they gave up.  They said there "
+"were too many patents, there was no way to do it."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Sometimes it's a feature that's patented, and the only to avoid that patent "
+"is not to implement that feature.  For instance, the users of the word "
+"processor Xywrite once got a downgrade in the mail, which removed a "
+"feature.  The feature was that you could define a list of abbreviations, for "
+"instance, if you define <tt>exp</tt> as an abbreviation for experiment, then "
+"if you type exp-space or exp-comma, the <tt>exp</tt> would change "
+"automatically to experiment.  Then somebody who had a patent on this feature "
+"threatened them and they concluded that the only thing they could do was to "
+"take the feature out.  And so they sent all the users a downgrade.  But they "
+"also contacted me, because my Emacs editor had a feature like that starting "
+"from the late 70s, and it was described in the Emacs manual, so they thought "
+"I might be able to help them invalidate that patent.  Well, I'm happy to "
+"know I've had at least one patentable idea in my life, but I'm unhappy that "
+"someone else patented it.  Fortunately in fact that patent was eventually "
+"invalidated, and partly on the strength of the fact that I had published "
+"using it earlier.  But in the meantime they had had to remove this feature.  "
+"Now, to remove one or two features may not be a disaster.  But when you have "
+"to remove 50 features, you could do it, but people are likely to say this "
+"program's no good, it's missing all the features I want, so it may not be a "
+"solution.  And sometimes a patent is so broad that it wipes out an entire "
+"field, like the patent on public key encryption, which in fact put public "
+"key encryption basically off limits for about ten years.  So that's the "
+"option of avoiding the patent, often possible, but sometimes not, and "
+"there's a limit to how many patents you can avoid."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"What about the next possibility, of getting a license for the patent? Well "
+"the patent holder may not offer you a license.  It's entirely up to him.  He "
+"could say, &ldquo;I just want to shut you down.&rdquo; I once got a letter "
+"from somebody whose family business was making casino games, which were of "
+"course computerized, and he had been threatened by a patent holder who said, "
+"who wanted to make his business shut down.  He sent me the patent.  Claim 1 "
+"was something like &ldquo;a network with a multiplicity of computers, in "
+"which each computer supports a multiplicity of games, and allows a "
+"multiplicity of game sessions at the same time&rdquo;.  Now, if, suppose, "
+"I'm sure in the 1980s there was a university that set up a room with a "
+"network of workstations, and each workstation had some kind of windowing "
+"facility, all they had to do was to install multiple games and it would be "
+"possible to display multiple game sessions at once.  This is so trivial and "
+"uninteresting that nobody would have bothered to publish an article about "
+"doing it, no one would have been interested in publishing an article about "
+"doing it, but it was worth patenting it.  If it had occurred to you that you "
+"could get a monopoly on this trivial thing, and then you could shut down "
+"your competitors with it, but why does the Patent Office issue so many "
+"patents that seem absurd and trivial to us?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"It's not because the patent examiners are stupid, it's because they're "
+"following a system, and the system has rules, and the rules lead to this "
+"result.  You see, if somebody has made a machine that does something once, "
+"and somebody else designs a machine that will do the same thing, but "
+"<tt>n</tt> times, for us that's a <code>for</code> loop, but for the Patent "
+"Office that's an invention.  If there are machines that can do <tt>a</tt>, "
+"and there are machines that can do <tt>b</tt>, and somebody designs a "
+"machine that can do <tt>a</tt> or <tt>b</tt>, for us that's an <code>if, "
+"then, else</code> statement, but for the Patent Office that's an invention.  "
+"So they have very low standards, and they follow those standards, and the "
+"result is patents that look absurd and trivial to us.  Whether they're "
+"legally valid I can't say.  But every programmer who sees them laughs.  In "
+"any case, I was unable to suggest anything he could do to help himself, and "
+"he had to shut down his business.  But most patent holders will offer you a "
+"license.  It's likely to be rather expensive.  But there are some software "
+"developers that find it particularly easy to get licenses, most of the "
+"time.  Those are the megacorporations.  In any field the megacorporations "
+"generally own about half the patents, and they cross-license each other, and "
+"they can make anybody else cross-license if he's really producing anything.  "
+"The result is that they end up painlessly with licenses for almost all the "
+"patents."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"IBM wrote an article in its house magazine, Think Magazine, and I think it's "
+"issue 5 1990, and it's about the benefit IBM got from the almost 9,000 US "
+"patents at the time, now it's up to 45,000 or more.  They said that one of "
+"the benefits was that they collected money, but the main benefit, which they "
+"said was perhaps an order of magnitude greater, was getting access to the "
+"patents of others, namely cross-licensing.  What this means is since IBM, "
+"with so many patents, can make almost everybody give them a cross-license, "
+"IBM avoids almost all the grief that the patent system would have inflicted "
+"on anybody else.  So that's why IBM wants software patents.  That's why the "
+"megacorporations in general want software patents, because they know that by "
+"cross-licensing, they will for a sort-of exclusive club on top of a mountain "
+"peak, and all the rest of us will be down here, and there's no way we can "
+"get up there.  You know, if you're a genius, you might start up a small "
+"company and get some patents, but you'll never get into IBM's league, no "
+"matter what you do."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Now a lot of companies tell their employees &ldquo;get us patents so we can "
+"defend ourselves&rdquo; and they mean use them to try to get "
+"cross-licensing, but it just doesn't work well.  It's not an effective "
+"strategy if you've got a small number of patents.  Suppose you've got three "
+"patents.  One points there, one points there, and one points there, and "
+"somebody over there points a patent at you.  Well, your three patents don't "
+"help you at all, because none of them points at him.  On the other hand, "
+"sooner or later, somebody in the company is going to notice that this patent "
+"is actually pointing at some people, and they could threaten them and "
+"squeeze money out of them, never mind that those people didn't attack this "
+"company.  So if your employer says to you &ldquo;we need some patents to "
+"defend ourselves, so help us get patents&rdquo;, I recommend this response:"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><blockquote><p>
+msgid ""
+"Boss, I trust you and I'm sure you would only use those patents to defend "
+"the company if it's attacked.  But I don't know who's going to be the CEO of "
+"this company in five years, for all I know it might get acquired by "
+"Microsoft, so I really can't trust the company's word to only use these "
+"patents for defense unless I get it in writing.  Please put it in writing "
+"that any patents I provide for the company will only be used for "
+"self-defense and collective security, and not for repression, and then I'll "
+"be able to get patents for the company with a clean conscience."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"It would be most interesting to raise this not just in private with your "
+"boss, but also on the company's discussion list.  The other thing that could "
+"happen is that the company could fail and its assets could be auctioned off, "
+"including the patents, and the patents will be bought by someone who means "
+"to use them to do something nasty.  This cross-licensing practice is very "
+"important to understand, because this is what punctures the argument of the "
+"software patent advocates who say that software patents are needed to "
+"protect the starving genius.  They give you a scenario which is a series of "
+"unlikelihoods."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"So let's look at it.  According to this scenario, there's a brilliant "
+"designer of whatever, who's been working for years by himself in his attic "
+"coming up with a better way to do whatever it is, and now that it's ready he "
+"wants to start a business and mass-produce this thing, and because his idea "
+"is so good his company will inevitably succeed, except for one thing.  The "
+"big companies will compete with him and take all the market away, and "
+"because of this his business will almost certainly fail and then he will "
+"starve.  Well, let's look at all the unlikely assumptions here."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"First of all, that he comes up with this idea working by himself.  That's "
+"not very likely.  In a high-tech field, most progress is made by people "
+"working in a field, doing things and talking with people in the field.  But "
+"I wouldn't say it's impossible, not that one thing by itself, but anyway the "
+"next supposition is that he's going to start a business and that it's going "
+"to succeed.  Well, just because he's a brilliant engineer doesn't mean that "
+"he's any good at running a business.  Most new businesses fail.  Like more "
+"than 95% of them, I think, fail within a few years.  So that's probably "
+"what's going to happen to him, no matter what.  OK, let's assume that in "
+"addition to being a brilliant engineer who came up with something great by "
+"himself, he's also talented at running businesses.  If he has a knack for "
+"running businesses, then maybe his business won't fail.  After all, not all "
+"new businesses fail, there are a certain few that succeed.  Well, if he "
+"understands business, then instead of trying to go head to head with large "
+"companies, he might try to do things that small companies are better at and "
+"have a better chance of succeeding, he might succeed.  But let's suppose it "
+"fails anyway.  If he's so brilliant and has a knack for running businesses, "
+"I'm sure he won't starve, because somebody will want to give him a job."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"So a series of unlikelihoods it's not a very plausible scenario.  But let's "
+"look at it anyway.  Because where they go from there is to say the patent "
+"system will &ldquo;protect&rdquo; our starving genius, because he can get a "
+"patent on this technique, and then when IBM wants to compete with him, he "
+"says &ldquo;IBM, you can't compete with me because I've got this "
+"patent&rdquo;, and IBM says &ldquo;Oh, no, not again&rdquo;.  Well, here's "
+"what really happens.  IBM says &ldquo;Oh, how nice, you have a patent.  "
+"Well, we have this patent, and this patent, and this patent, and this "
+"patent, and this patent, all of which cover other ideas implemented in your "
+"product, and if you think you can fight us on all those, we'll pull out some "
+"more.  So let's sign a cross-license agreement, and that way nobody will get "
+"hurt.&rdquo; Now since we've assumed that our genius understands business, "
+"he's going to realize that he has no choice.  He's going to sign the "
+"cross-license agreement, as just about everybody does when IBM demands it, "
+"and then, this means that IBM will get access to his patent, meaning IBM "
+"would be free to compete with him just as if there were no patents, which "
+"means that the supposed benefit that they claim he would get by having this "
+"patent is not real.  He won't get this benefit."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"The patent might protect him from competition from you or me, but not from "
+"IBM, not from the very megacorporations which are supposed to be the "
+"scenario says are the threat to him.  You know in advance that there's got "
+"to be a flaw in this reasoning when people who are lobbyists for "
+"megacorporations recommend a policy supposedly because it's going to protect "
+"their small competitors from them.  If it really were going to do that, they "
+"wouldn't be in favor of it.  But this explains why they won't do it."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Even IBM can't always do this, because there are companies that we refer to "
+"as patent trolls or patent parasites, and their only business is using "
+"patents to squeeze money out of people who really make something.  Patent "
+"lawyers tell us that it's really wonderful to have patents in your field, "
+"but they don't have patents in their field.  There are no patents on how to "
+"send or write a threatening letter, no patents on how to file a lawsuit, and "
+"no patents on how to persuade a judge or jury, so even IBM can't make the "
+"patent trolls cross-license.  But IBM figures our competition will have to "
+"pay them too, this is just part of the cost of doing business, and we can "
+"live with it.  IBM and the other megacorporations figure that the general "
+"dominion over all activity that they get from their patents is good for "
+"them, and paying off the trolls they can live with.  So that's why they want "
+"software patents."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"There are also certain software developers who find it particularly "
+"difficult to get a patent license, and those are the developers of free "
+"software.  The reason is that the usual patent license we can't possibly "
+"fulfill, because usual patent licenses demand a payment per copy.  But when "
+"software gives users the freedom to distribute and make more copies, we have "
+"no way to count the copies that exist.  If someone offered me a patent "
+"license for a payment of one-millionth of a dollar per copy, the total "
+"amount of money I'd have to pay maybe is in my pocket now, maybe it's 50 "
+"dollars, but I don't know if it's 50 dollars, or 49, or what, because "
+"there's no way I can count the copies that people have made.  A patent "
+"holder doesn't have to demand a payment per copy; a patent holder could "
+"offer you a license for a single lump sum, but those lump sums tend to be "
+"big, like US$100,000, and the reason that we've been able to develop so much "
+"freedom-respecting software is we can develop software without money, but we "
+"can't pay a lot of money without money.  If we're forced to pay for the "
+"privilege of writing software for the public, we won't be able to do it very "
+"much.  That's the possibility of getting a license for the patent."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"The other possibility is to invalidate the patent.  If the country considers "
+"software patents to be basically valid, and allowed, the only question is "
+"whether that particular patent meets the criteria.  The only way you can "
+"prove it doesn't, it's only useful to go to court if you've got an argument "
+"to make that might prevail.  What would that argument be? You have to find "
+"evidence that, years ago, before the patent was applied for, people knew "
+"about the same idea, and you'd have to find things today that demonstrate "
+"that they knew about it publicly at that time.  So the dice were cast years "
+"ago, and if they came up favorably for you and if you can prove that fact "
+"today, then you have an argument to use to try to invalidate the patent, and "
+"it might work.  It might cost you a lot of money to go through this case, "
+"and as a result, a probably invalid patent is a very frightening weapon to "
+"be threatened with if you don't have a lot of money.  There are people who "
+"can't afford to defend their rights.  Lots of them.  The ones who can afford "
+"it are the exception."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"These are the three things that you might be able to do about each patent "
+"that prohibits something in your program.  The thing is, whether each one is "
+"possible depends on different details of the circumstances, so some of the "
+"time, none of them is possible, and when that happens, your project is "
+"dead.  But lawyers in most countries tell us &ldquo;don't try to find the "
+"patents in advance&rdquo; and the reason is that the penalty for "
+"infringement is bigger if you knew about the patent.  So what they tell you "
+"is &ldquo;Keep your eyes shut.  Don't try to find out about the patents, "
+"just go blindly taking your design decisions, and hope.&rdquo; And of "
+"course, with each single design decision, you probably don't step on a "
+"patent.  Probably nothing happens to you.  But there's so many steps you "
+"have to take to get across the minefield it's very unlikely you will get "
+"through safely.  And of course, the patent holders don't all show up at the "
+"same time, so you don't know how many there are going to be.  The patent "
+"holder of the natural order recalculation patent was demanding 5% of the "
+"gross sales of every spreadsheet.  You could imagine paying for a few such "
+"licenses, but what happens when patent holder number 20 comes along, and "
+"wants you to pay out the last remaining 5%, and then what happens when "
+"patent holder number 21 comes along? People in business say that this "
+"scenario is amusing but absurd because your business would fail long before "
+"you got there.  They told me that two or three such licenses would make your "
+"business fail.  So you'd never get to 20.  They show up one by one, so you "
+"never know how many more there are going to be."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Software patents are a mess.  They're a mess for software developers, but in "
+"addition they're a restriction on every computer user because software "
+"patents restrict what you can do on your computer.  This is very different "
+"from patents, for instance, on automobile engines.  These only restrict "
+"companies that make cars, they don't restrict you and me, but software "
+"patents do restrict you and me, and everybody who uses computers.  So we "
+"can't think of them in purely economic terms, we can't judge this issue "
+"purely in economic terms, there's something more important at stake.  But "
+"even in economic terms, the system is self-defeating, because its purpose is "
+"supposed to be to promote progress, supposedly by creating this artificial "
+"incentive for people to publish ideas, it's going to help the field "
+"progress, but all it does is the exact opposite, because the big job in "
+"software is not coming up with ideas, it's implementing thousands of ideas "
+"together in one program.  And software patents obstruct that, so they're "
+"economically self-defeating, and there's even economic research showing that "
+"this is so, showing how in a field with a lot of incremental innovation, a "
+"patent system can actually reduce investment in R &amp; D.  And of course, "
+"it also obstructs development in other ways.  So even if we ignore the "
+"injustice of software patents, even if we were to look at it in the narrow "
+"economic terms that are usually proposed, it's still harmful.  People "
+"sometimes respond by saying that people in other fields have been living "
+"with patents for decades, and they've gotten used to it, so why should you "
+"be an exception? Now that question has an absurd assumption.  It's like "
+"saying &ldquo;other people get cancer, why shouldn't you?&rdquo;.  I think "
+"every time someone doesn't get cancer, that's good, regardless of what "
+"happened to the others.  That question is absurd because of its "
+"presupposition that somehow we all have a duty to suffer the harm done by "
+"patents.  But there is a sensible question buried inside it, and that "
+"sensible question is what differences are there between various fields that "
+"might affect what is good or bad patent policy in those fields?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"There is an important basic difference between fields in regard to how many "
+"patents are likely to prohibit or cover parts of any one product.  Now we "
+"have a naive idea in our minds which I'm trying to get rid of, because it's "
+"not true, and it's that in any one product there is one patent, and that "
+"patent covers the overall design of that product, so if you design a new "
+"product, it can't be patented already, and you will have an opportunity to "
+"get &ldquo;the patent&rdquo; on that product.  That's not how things work."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"In the 1800s, maybe they did, but not now.  In fact, fields fall on a "
+"spectrum of how many patents per product.  The beginning of the spectrum is "
+"one, but no field is like that today, but fields are at various places on "
+"this spectrum.  The field that's closest to that is pharmaceuticals.  A few "
+"decades ago, there really was one patent per pharmaceutical, at least at any "
+"time, because the patent covered the entire chemical formula of that one "
+"particular substance.  Back then, if you developed a new drug, you could be "
+"sure it wasn't already patented by somebody else and you could get the one "
+"patent on that drug.  But that's not how it works now."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Now there are broader patents, so now you could develop a new drug, and "
+"you're not allowed to make it because somebody has a broader patent which "
+"covers it already.  And there might even be a few such patents covering your "
+"new drug simultaneously, but there wont' be hundreds.  And the reason is our "
+"ability to do biochemical engineering is so limited that nobody knows how to "
+"combine so many ideas to make something that's useful in medicine.  If you "
+"can combine a couple of them you're doing pretty well at our level of "
+"knowledge.  But other fields involve combining more ideas to make one "
+"thing.  At the other end of the spectrum is software, where we can combine "
+"more ideas into one usable design than anybody else, because our field is "
+"basically easier than all other fields.  I'm presuming that the intelligence "
+"of people in our field is the same as that of people in physical "
+"engineering.  It's not that we're fundamentally better than they are, it's "
+"that our field is fundamentally easier, because we're working with "
+"mathematics.  A program is made out of mathematical components, which have a "
+"definition, whereas physical objects don't have a definition.  The matter "
+"does what it does, so through the perversity of matter, your design may not "
+"work the way it should have worked.  And that's just tough.  You can't say "
+"that the matter has a bug in it, and the physical universe should get "
+"fixed.  So we can make a castle that rests on a mathematically thin line, "
+"and it stays up because nothing weighs anything."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"There's so many complications you have to cope with in physical engineering "
+"that we don't have to worry about.  For instance, when I put an "
+"<code>if</code> statement inside of a <code>while</code> loop, I don't have "
+"to worry that if this <code>while</code> loop repeats at the wrong rate, the "
+"<code>if</code> statement might start to vibrate and it might resonate and "
+"crack.  I don't have to worry that if it resonates much faster, you know, "
+"millions of times per second, that it might induce radio frequency signals, "
+"generate radio frequency signals that might induce wrong values in other "
+"parts of the program.  I don't have to worry that corrosive fluids from the "
+"environment might seep in between the <code>if</code> statement and the "
+"<code>while</code> statement and start eating away at them until the signals "
+"don't pass anymore.  I don't have to worry about how the heat generated by "
+"my <code>if</code> statement is going to get out through the "
+"<code>while</code> statement so that it doesn't make the <code>if</code> "
+"statement burn out.  And I don't have to worry about how I would take out "
+"the broken <code>if</code> statement if it does crack, burn, or corrode, and "
+"replace it with another <code>if</code> statement to make the program run "
+"again.  For that matter, I don't have to worry about how I'm going to insert "
+"the <code>if</code> statement inside the <code>while</code> statement every "
+"time I produce a copy of the program.  I don't have to design a factory to "
+"make copies of my program, because there are various general commands that "
+"will make copies of anything.  If I want to make copies on CD I just have to "
+"write a master, and there's one program, I can make a master out of "
+"anything, write any data I want, I can make a master CD and write it and "
+"send it off to a factory and they'll duplicate whatever I send them.  I "
+"don't have to design a different factory for each thing I want to "
+"duplicate.  Very often with physical engineering you have to do that, you "
+"have to design products for manufacturability.  Designing the factory may "
+"even be a bigger job than designing the product, and then you may have to "
+"spend millions of dollars to build the factory.  So with all of this "
+"trouble, you're not going to be able to put together so many different ideas "
+"in one product and have it work.  A physical design with a million "
+"non-repeating different design elements is a gigantic project.  A program "
+"with a million different design elements, that's nothing.  It's a few "
+"hundred thousand lines of code, and a few people will write that in a few "
+"years, so it's not a big deal.  So the result is that the patent system "
+"weighs proportionately heavier on us than it does on people in any other "
+"field who are being held back by the perversity of matter."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"A lawyer did a study of one particular large program, namely the kernel "
+"Linux, which is used together with the GNU operating system that I launched, "
+"and, this was like five years ago now, he found 283 different US patents, "
+"each of which appeared to prohibit some computation done somewhere in the "
+"code of Linux.  At the time I saw an article saying that Linux was 0.25% of "
+"the whole system.  So by multiplying 300 by 400 we can estimate the number "
+"of patents that would prohibit something in the whole system as being around "
+"100,000.  This is a very rough estimate only, and no more accurate "
+"information is available, since trying to figure it out would be a gigantic "
+"task.  Now this lawyer did not publish the list of patents, because that "
+"would have endangered the developers of Linux the kernel, putting them in a "
+"position where the penalties if they were sued would be greater.  He didn't "
+"want to hurt them, he wanted to demonstrate how bad this problem is, of "
+"patent gridlock."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"To explain this&mdash;programmers can understand this immediately, but "
+"politicians usually don't know much about programming&mdash;they can't "
+"appreciate this, they usually imagine that patents are basically much like "
+"copyrights, only somehow stronger.  They imagine that since software "
+"developers are not endangered by the copyrights on their work, that they "
+"won't be endangered by the patents on their work either.  They imagine that, "
+"since when you write a program, you have the copyright, OK, well if you "
+"write a program, so you have the patents also.  This is false, so how do we "
+"give them a clue what patents would really do? What they really do in "
+"countries like the US?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"I find it's useful to make an analogy between software and symphonies.  "
+"Here's why it's a good analogy.  A program or symphony combines many ideas.  "
+"A symphony combines many musical ideas.  But you can't just pick a bunch of "
+"ideas and say here's my combination of ideas, do you like it? Because in "
+"order to make them work you have to implement them all.  You can't just pick "
+"musical ideas and list them and say &ldquo;Hey, how do you like this "
+"combination?&rdquo;.  You can't hear that.  You have to write notes which "
+"implement all these ideas together.  The hard task, the thing most of us "
+"wouldn't be any good at, is writing all these notes to make the whole thing "
+"sound good.  Sure, lots of us could pick musical ideas out of a list, but we "
+"wouldn't know how to write a good sounding symphony to implement those "
+"ideas.  Only some of us have that talent.  That's the thing that limits "
+"you.  I could probably invent a few musical ideas, but I wouldn't know how "
+"to use them to any effect."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"So imagine that it's the 1700s and the governments of Europe decide that "
+"they want to promote the progress of symphonic music by establishing a "
+"system of musical idea patents, so that any musical idea described in words "
+"could be patented.  For instance, using a particular sequence of notes as a "
+"motif could be patented, or a chord progression could be patented, or a "
+"rhythmic pattern could be patented, or using certain instruments by "
+"themselves could be patented, or a format of repetitions in a movement could "
+"be patented, any sort of musical idea that could be described in words would "
+"have been patentable.  Now imagine that it's 1800 and you're Beethoven, and "
+"you want to write a symphony.  You're going to find it's much harder to "
+"write a symphony you don't get sued for than to write one that sounds good, "
+"because you have to thread your way around all the patents that existed.  If "
+"you complained about this, the patent holders would say, &ldquo;Oh, "
+"Beethoven, you're just jealous because we had these ideas first.  Why don't "
+"you go and think of some ideas of your own?&rdquo;."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Now Beethoven had ideas of his own.  The reason he's considered a great "
+"composer is because of all of the new ideas that he had, and he actually "
+"used, and he knew how to use them in such a way that they would work, which "
+"was to combine them with lots of well-known ideas.  He could put a few new "
+"ideas into a composition together with a lot of old and uncontroversial "
+"ideas, and the result was a piece that was controversial, but not so much so "
+"that people couldn't get used to it.  To us, Beethoven's music doesn't sound "
+"controversial, I'm told it was, when it was new.  But because he combined "
+"his new ideas with a lot of known ideas, he was able to give people a chance "
+"to stretch a certain amount, and they could, which is why to us those ideas "
+"sound just fine.  But nobody, not even a Beethoven, is such a genius that he "
+"could reinvent music from zero, not using any of the well-known ideas and "
+"make something that people would want to listen to.  And nobody is such a "
+"genius he could reinvent computing from zero, not using any of the "
+"well-known ideas, and make something that people want to use."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"When the technological context changes so frequently, you end up with a "
+"situation where what was done 20 years ago is totally inadequate.  Twenty "
+"years ago there was no World Wide Web.  So sure, people did a lot of things "
+"with computers back then, but what they want to do today are things that "
+"work with the World Wide Web, and you can't do that using only the ideas "
+"that were known 20 years ago.  And I presume that the technological context "
+"will continue to change, creating fresh opportunities for somebody to get "
+"patents that give the shaft to the whole field.  Big companies can even do "
+"this themselves.  For instance, a few years ago Microsoft decided to make a "
+"phony open standard for documents and to get it approved as a standard by "
+"corrupting the International Standards Organization, which they did.  But "
+"they designed using something that Microsoft had patented.  Microsoft is big "
+"enough that it can start with a patent, design a format or protocol to use "
+"that patented idea, whether it's helpful or not, in such a way that there's "
+"no way to be compatible unless you use that same idea too.  And then "
+"Microsoft can make that a de facto standard with or without help from "
+"corrupted standards bodies.  Just by its weight it can push people into "
+"using that format, and that basically means that they get a stranglehold "
+"over the whole world.  So we need to show the politicians what's really "
+"going on here.  We need to show them why this is bad."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid ""
+"Now I've heard it said that the reason New Zealand is considering software "
+"patents is that one large company wants to be given some monopolies.  To "
+"restrict everyone in the country so that one company will make more money is "
+"the absolute opposite of statesmanship."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd><p>
+msgid "So, at this point, I'd like to ask for questions."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dt>
+#:                      
+msgid "Q."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "What is the alternative?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dt>
+#:                      
+msgid "A."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"No software patents.  I know that that works fine.  I was in the field when "
+"there were no software patents, and that meant people developed software, "
+"and they distributed that software in various ways, and they didn't have to "
+"worry about getting sued by patent holders for doing it, so they were safe.  "
+"Software patents don't solve a real problem, so we don't need to ask what "
+"other solution is there."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "How do the developers get rewarded?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Many ways.  Software patents have nothing to do with that.  Remember if "
+"you're a software developer, software patents don't help you get whatever "
+"you want to get, different software developers want different things.  I "
+"developed some important software in the 1980s, and the reward I wanted was "
+"to see people using computers in freedom.  And I got that reward, although "
+"not totally.  Not everybody has freedom.  But software patents would only "
+"have stopped me.  Other people developed programs because they wanted "
+"money.  Software patents threaten them, too, and still threaten them, "
+"because you're not going to make any money if patent holders demand that you "
+"give it all to them, or if they make you shut down."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "How do you prevent plagiarism and still&hellip;"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Plagiarism has nothing to do with this issue.  It has absolutely nothing to "
+"do with this issue.  Plagiarism means copying the text of a work and "
+"claiming to have written it yourself.  But patents are not concerned with "
+"the text of any particular work.  They simply have nothing to do with this.  "
+"If you write a work and this work embodies some ideas, which it always does, "
+"there's no reason to think that the patents covering those ideas would "
+"belong to you.  They're more likely to belong to lots of others, and half of "
+"them to the megacorporations, and they can then all sue you.  So you don't "
+"even have to worry, long before you get to the point where somebody else "
+"might copy it, you're going to be getting the shaft.  You are confusing "
+"patents with copyrights, I'm afraid.  They have nothing in common.  I've "
+"explained to you what the patent system does to software, but I think you "
+"don't believe me because you've heard what copyrights do and you're "
+"confusing the two, so these impressions you've got about what copyrights do, "
+"you're just assuming that patents do them also, and they don't.  If you "
+"write some code, the copyright on that code would belong to you, but if your "
+"code implements ideas, if some of these ideas are patented, those patents "
+"belong to others who could then sue you.  You don't have to be afraid with "
+"copyright that when you write code yourself, that somebody else already has "
+"a copyright on it and can sue you, because copyright only restricts "
+"copying.  In fact, even if you write something which is identical to what "
+"somebody else wrote, if you can prove you didn't copy it, that's a defense "
+"under copyright law, because copyright law is only concerned with copying.  "
+"But copyright law is only concerned with the details of authorship of a "
+"work, so it has nothing in common with patent law in terms of what it deals "
+"with, and the effects are totally different.  Now I'm not in favor "
+"personally of all the things that people do with copyright law, I've "
+"criticized it, but it's a totally different, unrelated issue.  If you think "
+"that patent law helps somebody who is developing software, it means that you "
+"have got a completely wrong picture of what patent law actually does."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "Don't get me wrong.  I'm on your side."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"OK, but still you've got a wrong picture.  I'm not blaming you for it, "
+"because you've just been misinformed."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"If I'm writing software for commercial purposes, do I get good protection by "
+"treating it as a black box and keeping it secret?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"I don't want to discuss that question because I'm not in favor of it, I "
+"think it's unethical to do that, but that's an unrelated issue."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "I understand that."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"I don't want to change the subject and then praise something that I think is "
+"bad.  But because it's a change of subject I'd rather not get into that."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Our Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology, I think they're "
+"probably the equivalent of your National Science Foundation, provides grants "
+"for research and development and one of the things that they propose pretty "
+"actively is that ideas that they have funded should be secured if possible "
+"by patents."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"That shouldn't be the case in software, because software ideas shouldn't be "
+"patentable ever by anyone.  But what you are seeing there, more generally, "
+"is an example of the general corruption of our society by putting commercial "
+"aims above all others.  Now I'm not a communist and I don't want to abolish "
+"business, but when it becomes business above all, every aspect of life, "
+"oriented towards business, that is dangerous."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"So Richard, if you talk to the Foundation, perhaps you might propose that "
+"there are better ways for a small country like New Zealand to make money on "
+"software."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Software patents don't help anybody make money out of software.  They mean "
+"that you're in danger of getting sued when you try."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Which makes it difficult for New Zealand as a country to build an economic "
+"base using software as part of that."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Sorry, when you say &ldquo;which&rdquo; I don't know what you are referring "
+"to.  Software patents will make it difficult for anyone, if New Zealand "
+"allows software patents, that will make it difficult in New Zealand for "
+"anybody to develop programs and distribute them, because you'll be in danger "
+"of getting sued.  Software patents have nothing to do with developing a "
+"program and then putting it to some use."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"So New Zealand, in terms of its economic development, it would be better "
+"protected by having no software patents."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Yes.  You see, each country has its own patent system, and they work "
+"independently except that countries have signed up to a treaty that says "
+"&ldquo;if you have got a patent in that country, you can basically bring "
+"your application over here, and we'll judge it based on the year you applied "
+"for it over there&rdquo;.  But other than that, each country has its own "
+"criteria for what can be patented and has its own set of patents.  So the "
+"result is if the US allows software patents and New Zealand does not, that "
+"means that everybody in the world, including New Zealanders, can get US "
+"software patents and sue us poor Americans at home.  But, if New Zealand "
+"doesn't allow software patents that means that neither you nor we can get "
+"New Zealand software patents to sue you New Zealanders at home.  You can be "
+"sure that almost all the software patents will belong to foreigners who will "
+"use them to basically kick any New Zealand software developers whenever they "
+"get the chance."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "Since the Hughes Aircraft case, I think it was in the 1990s."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "I don't know about that case."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"But basically New Zealand's had software patents.  It's not like we're going "
+"into a field where we don't already have them, we do."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"I don't know, but I'm told that there's a decision being made now at the "
+"legislative level of whether to allow them.  But Patent Offices often "
+"respond to lobbying from megacorporations through WIPO.  WIPO, as you can "
+"tell from its name, which is the World Intellectual Property Organization, "
+"is up to no good, because any use of that term is spreading confusion.  WIPO "
+"gets a lot of its funds from megacorporations, and uses those funds to bring "
+"officials from Patent Offices to idyllic resort destinations for training.  "
+"What they train them to do is twist the law to allow patents in areas where "
+"they're not supposed to be allowed.  You've seen, in many countries there "
+"are laws and court decisions which say that software as such can't be "
+"patented, algorithms can't be patented, or &ldquo;mathematical&rdquo; "
+"algorithms can't be patented, no one's quite sure what it means for an "
+"algorithm to be mathematical or not, and various other criteria which if "
+"interpreted naturally would rule out software patents, but the patent "
+"offices twist the law to allow them anyway.  For instance, a lot of things "
+"which practically speaking are software patents, have the form where they "
+"describe a system involving a central processing unit, a memory, "
+"input/output facilities, instruction-fetching facilities, and means to "
+"perform this particular computation.  In effect what they've done is, "
+"they've written explicitly into the patent all the parts of an ordinary "
+"computer, and then they say &ldquo;well, this is a physical system which we "
+"would like to patent&rdquo;, but really it's just patenting certain software "
+"on a computer.  There are many subterfuges that they've used.  Patent "
+"Offices will generally try to twist the law into allowing more patents.  In "
+"the US software patents were created by a court decision in 1982, in the "
+"Appeals Court that deals with all patent cases, which misunderstood a "
+"Supreme Court decision from the previous year, and misapplied it.  Now it "
+"looks like that Appeals Court has finally changed its mind, and its come to "
+"the conclusion that it was mistaken all along, and it looks like this "
+"decision will get rid of all software patents, unless the Supreme Court "
+"reverses it.  The Supreme Court is now considering it, and within less than "
+"a year we should find out whether we've won or lost."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Should that case be unsuccessful, is there any movement in the States to "
+"take a legislated solution?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Yes, and I been promoting this for about 19 years now.  It's a battle that "
+"we fight over and over in various different countries."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "Where in your universe do you put the in I4i case?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "I have no idea what that is."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"It's where Microsoft has basically almost had to shut down on selling Word, "
+"because they were found to have infringed a Canadian patent."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Oh, that one.  That's just an example of how dangerous software patents are "
+"to all software developers.  I don't like what Microsoft does, but that's an "
+"issue that's irrelevant for this purpose.  It's not good that somebody can "
+"sue a software developer and say &ldquo;I won't let you distribute such "
+"software&rdquo;."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Obviously we live in an imperfect world, and in some cases we run into the "
+"issue of software patents.  Do you think that we should allow privileges for "
+"researchers to get around patents in the same way that copyright law allows "
+"research on copyright material?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"No, it's a mistake to look for partial solutions, because we have a much "
+"better chance of establishing a full solution.  Everybody involved in "
+"software development and distribution and use, when they see, except the "
+"ones in the megacorporations, when they see how dangerous software patents "
+"are, they will get behind total rejection of software patents, whereas an "
+"exception for some special case will only win support from the people in "
+"that special case.  These partial solutions are essentially distractions.  "
+"People start by saying, &ldquo;Oh, I'm sure we can't really solve the "
+"problem, so I give up on that.  Let me propose a partial solution.&rdquo; "
+"But these partial solutions don't make it safe to develop software."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"You wouldn't, however, oppose a partial solution that's not necessarily just "
+"directed at software patents, so you wouldn't oppose experimental use, which "
+"may be a good solution for the pharmaceutical patent."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "I wouldn't oppose that."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"But what you're saying is that you don't think it's applicable to software, "
+"just to clarify."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Something that says only a few of us, or only certain activities, or gets "
+"rid of half the software patents, that's analogous to say &ldquo;well, maybe "
+"we could clear part of the minefield, or maybe we could destroy half the "
+"mines in the minefield,&rdquo; but that doesn't make it safe."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"So you've been speaking the same thing all around the world.  How much "
+"uptake has there been? Have governments changed, or not adopted software "
+"patents?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Some have.  In India a few years ago, there was an attempt to change patent "
+"law to explicitly allow software patents and it was dropped.  A few years "
+"ago the US proposed a trade treaty, a free exploitation treaty, with Latin "
+"America, and it was blocked by the president of Brazil, who said no to "
+"software patents and another nasty thing relating to computers, and that "
+"killed the whole treaty.  That's apparently the whole thing that the US "
+"wanted to impose on the rest of the continent.  But these things don't stay "
+"dead. There are companies that have full-time staff looking for some way "
+"they can subvert some country or other."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"Is there any real hard data around what happens in economic terms in the "
+"innovation communities in countries that have essentially no software "
+"patents?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"There isn't any.  It's almost impossible to measure these things.  Actually, "
+"I shouldn't say there isn't any.  There is a little.  It's very hard to "
+"measure the effect of the patent system, because you're comparing the real "
+"world with a counterfactual world, and there's no way to be sure what would "
+"happen.  What I can say is before there were software patents, there was "
+"lots of software development, not as much as there is now, because of course "
+"there were nowhere near as many computer users.  How many computer users "
+"were there in 1982, even in the US? It was a small fraction of the public.  "
+"But there were software developers, they weren't saying we desperately want "
+"patents.  They weren't getting sued for patent infringement after they "
+"developed their programs.  But there is a bit of research that I saw that "
+"apparently software patents did not, essentially, resulted not in an "
+"increase in research, but a shift of funds from research into patenting."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "Do you expect that there would be any interest in trade secrets?"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"No.  Before there were software patents, a lot of software developers kept "
+"the details of their programs secret, but they usually wouldn't keep any of "
+"the general ideas secret, because that they realized that the big job in "
+"developing good software was not picking your general ideas, it was "
+"implementing a lot of ideas together.  So they would publish, they would let "
+"their employees publish in scholarly journals any interesting new ideas that "
+"they'd had.  So now, they'll patent those new ideas.  It has very little to "
+"do with developing a useful program, and just letting people know some ideas "
+"doesn't give them a program.  Besides, most of the ideas, the thousands of "
+"idea you've combined in your program, are known anyway."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"To back that up, I was listening to an interview, one of the founders of "
+"PayPal was interviewed, and he said that he really felt strongly that his "
+"success was 5% idea and 95% execution, and that supports your point really "
+"well."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "I agree."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "Excellent.  Richard has here stickers which I believe are free."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid "Gratis, and these are for sale."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <dl><dd>
+msgid ""
+"So you're welcome to come down. It's been a great debate&mdash;thank you "
+"Richard."
+msgstr ""
+
+#. TRANSLATORS: Use space (SPC) as msgstr if you don't have notes.
+# type: Content of: <div>
+msgid "*GNUN-SLOT: TRANSLATOR'S NOTES*"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <div><p>
+msgid ""
+"Please send FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to <a "
+"href=\"mailto:address@hidden";>&lt;address@hidden&gt;</a>.  There are also <a "
+"href=\"/contact/\">other ways to contact</a> the FSF.  <br /> Please send "
+"broken links and other corrections or suggestions to <a "
+"href=\"mailto:address@hidden";>&lt;address@hidden&gt;</a>."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <div><p>
+msgid ""
+"Please see the <a "
+"href=\"/server/standards/README.translations.html\">Translations README</a> "
+"for information on coordinating and submitting translations of this article."
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <div><p>
+msgid "Copyright &copy; 2009 Richard Stallman"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <div><p>
+msgid ""
+"This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative "
+"Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit <a "
+"href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/\";> "
+"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/</a> or send a letter to "
+"Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, "
+"94105, USA."
+msgstr ""
+
+#. TRANSLATORS: Use space (SPC) as msgstr if you don't want credits.
+# type: Content of: <div><div>
+msgid "*GNUN-SLOT: TRANSLATOR'S CREDITS*"
+msgstr ""
+
+#.  timestamp start 
+# type: Content of: <div><p>
+msgid "Updated:"
+msgstr ""
+
+# type: Content of: <div><h4>
+msgid "Translations of this page"
+msgstr ""