Subject: Re: bandwidth (and other support) required for multicast

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 16:48:16 +0100 (BST)

On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Keith Moore wrote:

> let's stamp out proprietary data formats (and patent profiteering)
> in our lifetime.

and then the incentive to innovate is what, exactly?

L.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 12:04:50 -0400

> and then the incentive to innovate is what, exactly?

people often create things for reasons other than wanting to control them.  
this happens so often that it's the rule rather than the exception.
if you don't believe this, it's because you haven't been looking.

there are other ways to benefit from something than to control it.
I work on networking protocols because I wish to benefit from 
their deployment in the world.  (to be sure, I want the rest of the
world to benefit also) controlling them would not serve my purpose; 
in fact, it would prevent it.

Keith

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From: Kent Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 11:41:37 -0700

> and then the incentive to innovate is what, exactly?

1) profit clearly isn't the only incentive to innovate.

2) there are innumerable ways to make a profit that do not require
"proprietary data formats and patent profiteering". 

3) dislike of "patent profiteering" is not the same as dislike of 
patents.   

Patents and other intellectual property instruments are (historically)
justified indirectly by their social utility, not because of any obvious
direct or intrinsic moral notion of "intellectual property".  As you
imply, the social utility is that society benefits from the innovation
fostered by patents.  But if patents and copyrights are used to stifle
innovation, then they lose legitimacy.  I don't want to put words in 
Keith's mouth, but I think he would say that the core of his concern is 
that patents are now being used to stifle creativity.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
[email-masked]                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 23:52:18 -0400

> I think Keith is railing against patent  *profiteering* - the making of
> large sums of money off something that shouldn't have been patentable
> to begin with, due to the "obviousness" or "prior art" requirements.

yes, but my list of things that "shouldn't have been patentable to begin
with" includes a lot more than that!

basically, if you're trying to use your "ownership" of patents in order to 
extort protection money out of people for developing or distributing 
software, I regard this as a form of censorship, an infringement on the
right of free speech, and therefore, an act of violence.

the word "profiteering" is really far too kind.

Keith

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 23:41:32 -0400

Although the guys at RSA certainly changed the face of cryptography
for almost 2 decades, that application of prime numbers was certainly
novel and without prior art.  On the other hand, there's been a rather
large quantity of total-manure patents issued of late.  I'm sure that
we all can think of our favorite examples of THOSE...

				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech