www/philosophy stallman-mec-india.html

[Therese Godefroy]

CVSROOT:        /webcvs/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Therese Godefroy <th_g> 18/11/04 05:48:12

Modified files:
        philosophy     : stallman-mec-india.html 

Log message:
        Minor edits.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.35&r2=1.36

Patches:
Index: stallman-mec-india.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /webcvs/www/www/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html,v
retrieving revision 1.35
retrieving revision 1.36
diff -u -b -r1.35 -r1.36
--- stallman-mec-india.html     18 Aug 2015 16:25:28 -0000      1.35
+++ stallman-mec-india.html     4 Nov 2018 10:48:11 -0000       1.36
@@ -9,11 +9,12 @@
 
 <h2>The Danger of Software Patents (2001)</h2> 
  
-<p class="center"> <em>Speech by Richard M. Stallman<br /> at Model 
-Engineering College, Government of Kerala, India, 2001</em></p> 
- 
-<p>(An <a href="http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-mec-india.ogg";>
-audio recording</a> of this talk is available.)</p> 
+<p><strong>Richard Stallman</strong></p>
+<p> <em>Speech given at Model Engineering College, Government of Kerala,
+India, 2001</em> 
+(<a href="http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-mec-india.ogg";>audio
+recording</a>)</p> 
+<hr />
  
 <div><h3>Summary</h3> 
  
@@ -146,26 +147,22 @@
 other.  Let me tell you some of the basic differences between copyrights 
 and patents:</p> 
  
-<ul>
+<ul class="blurbs">
   <li> A copyright deals with a particular work, usually a written work, 
   and it has to do with the details of that work.  Ideas are completely 
   excluded.  Patents, by contrast &mdash; well, a patent covers an idea. 
   It's that simple, and any idea that you can describe, that's what a 
-  patent might restrict you from doing.</li>
-</ul> 
+  patent might restrict you from doing.</p></li>
  
-<ul>
-  <li> Now, copyrights have to do with copying.  If you wrote something 
+  <li> Copyrights have to do with copying.  If you wrote something 
   that was word for word the same as some famous novel, and you could prove 
   that you did this while you were locked up in a room and you have never 
   seen that novel, this would not be copyright violation because it's not 
   copying.  But a patent is an absolute monopoly on using a particular idea. 
   And even if you could show that you thought of it on your own, that 
   would be considered totally irrelevant.  It doesn't help you.</li>
-</ul> 
  
-<ul>
-  <li> Now, copyrights exist automatically.  Whenever anything is written, 
+  <li> Copyrights exist automatically.  Whenever anything is written, 
   it's copyrighted.  Patents are issued through an expensive 
   application process.  There is an expensive fee and even more expense 
   in paying lawyers, which of course tends to be good for big companies. 
@@ -177,16 +174,14 @@
   it's obvious.&rdquo; They say &ldquo;well, this is hindsight.&rdquo;  So 
   they just have an excuse to completely ignore the judgment of everybody 
   who really is a programmer.</li>
-</ul> 
  
-<ul>
-  <li> Now, copyrights last an extremely long time.  In the US today it's 
+  <li> Copyrights last an extremely long time.  In the US today it's 
   possible for copyrights to last for 150 years, which is absurd. Patents 
   don't last that long; they merely last for a long time &mdash; 20 years, 
   which in the field of software, as you can imagine, is a long time.</li>
 </ul> 
  
-<p> Now there are many other differences as well.  In fact every detail is 
+<p> There are many other differences as well.  In fact every detail is 
 different.  So the worst thing you should ever do is learn something about 
 copyrights and suppose that the same is true of patents. No, more likely 
 it's not true of patents.  If it's true of copyrights, it's not true for 
@@ -264,7 +259,7 @@
 links, you'll find some patents that are relevant to what you're doing. 
 You won't find them <em>all</em>.</p> 
  
-<p> Now, a few years ago somebody had a US patent &mdash; maybe it's 
+<p> A few years ago somebody had a US patent &mdash; maybe it's 
 expired by now &mdash; on natural order recalculation in spreadsheets. 
 Now, what does this mean?  It means the original spreadsheets did the 
 recalculation always from top to bottom.  Which meant that if a cell 
@@ -2163,7 +2158,7 @@
 
 <p class="unprintable">Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start --> 
-$Date: 2015/08/18 16:25:28 $ 
+$Date: 2018/11/04 10:48:11 $ 
 <!-- timestamp end --> 
 </p> 
 </div>