[DMCA-Activists] Re: [Patents] The politics of software over-protection -- moving forward..

[Xavi Drudis Ferran]

El Fri, Apr 25, 2003 at 04:11:07PM -0400, Russell McOrmond deia:
> 
>   As an additional example, I think people in the patents forum have
> dismissed Greg too quickly.  You can strongly disagree with his
> conclusions (as I clearly do), and possibly even his style of presenting
> things, but his analysis is very important to be knowledgeable on.  We
> need to understand why people (other than those with obvious
> monopoly/protectionist interests) support software patents.  Gret appears
> to see this as a legal/enforcement of rights issue, and you need to talk
> of of a required balance against other (in my opinion, more important)
> public policy in that context.
>

Dismissed Greg too quickly?. Greg has been presenting roughly the same
arguments here (address@hidden) for 2 or 3 years at least. We are
tired of the repetitions, and of having to refute them again and again
with the same facts and repeat dialogues endlessly. I'd say he's also
somewhat tired, since his frequency has decreased a little.
 
>   If we leave it as a legal/enforcement discussion of exceptions without
> discussing why the exceptions were there in the first place, the "we need
> more protection than copyright"  folks will likely win.
>

? We always explain the reason for the exemptions. It's the same you give 
in part: different innovatiosn have different economies and need different
legal instruments. And then there're more.

> 
>   The first aspect of winning is believing that you can, and then
> designing a plan to get there.  Don't confuse the goals with the temporary
> methods.  We may have the long-term goal of eradicating software patent,
> and have good reasons for having those goals, but am interested in
> proposing compromises as a method to actually get there.
>

My only problem is what you propose would be complex and leave many problems, 
because you don't attack the source of the problem: subject matter (or I 
failed to understand).

-- 
Xavi Drudis Ferran
address@hidden