On Saturday 11 November 2006 23:21, M Harris wrote:
On Sunday 05 November 2006 05:24, you wrote:
Re: software patentability: I ask this in all seriousness; I don't have a particular pre-conceived bias one way or the other:
Why would assembling a collections of "objects" (as in C-objects) together to perform some function be any different that assembling a collection of resistors, capacitors and active devices together to form a "circuit" (which is certainly patentable)?
hi Tony,
Great question. I asked it also, as I was thinking through this...
The answer is simple, but in order to answer it you need to ask another question.... how is "software" like or unlike a collection of resistors and capacitors assembled on a circuit board... compare and contrast.
The circuit board containing resistors and capacitors is a physical (meta-physical) construction comprised of real objects manufactured from "stuff" that we generally call matter (we can touch it). Software is text.
The point is that software (as a medium) is only text, like a play, a novel, a short story, a poem... or a recipe in a cookbook. It is a set of symbols which can be read (by another person, or by a machine).... it is text, plain and simple.
Text is protected by copyright (or copyleft... as I see it) and is not patentable. Software is text, and as such should be protected by copyright (or copyleft) and should not be patentable any more than a recipe in a cookbook (designed to be read and "executed" by a chef in a kitchen). The recipe in the cookbook, and any other software objects, are both text.... protected by copyright perhaps (or copyleft) but not patentable.
/snip/ You should be happy that software is patented, rather than copyrighted. Patents expire within a long but reasonable(?) time; copyrights don't expire for almost 200 years. No-one living will ever see a copyright expire, even if it was granted to Mickey Mouse movies of the 1920's. Of course, I'm not happy that software is patented, I think that's ridiculous, but think of the alternative! --doug --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org