>but for hard problems the problem is much worse: just by being a sophisticated >user of a non-trivial software project you can deduct major portions of the >solutions being used, and perhaps more importantly, the questions asked in the >original R&D process.
That is what the patenting system exists originally (in its current form it serves a different purpose entirely). If you came up with something truly original, you can patent it. But only for long enough for you to be able to make money on it and not the kind of patents that are granted nowadays. That's in theory. In practice, no matter how hard your R&D was and how novel your idea is, if the implementation can be done by 10th graders, you're not going to be able to make money on it anyway. Whether it's fair or not, I don't know, but making laws that would prevent it is pointless since they can't be enforced without completely choking innovation anyway. Alexander Maryanovsky. At 14:48 7/15/2002 +0300, Guy Baruch wrote: >Alexander Maryanovsky wrote: > >> >> >>The solution to your problem is of course to release your software under >>the GPL in the first place and sell it at reasonable prices. That or >>write software that 10th graders can't implement. If you intended to make >>money on such software in the first place, you were clearly kidding yourself. > >but for hard problems the problem is much worse: just by being a sophisticated >user of a non-trivial software project you can deduct major portions of the >solutions being used, and perhaps more importantly, the questions asked in the >original R&D process. > >real R&D , i.e. solving problems nobody has solved before, and projecting >on future needs >is much, much harder than following in someones footsteps. > >there is real innovation done in the technological world (SW or other) , >and no, >not all of it is done in the academia or by dedicated volunteers, >much of it is in the industry by people getting paid from investors seeking >to profit on their investments. > >as said elsewhere many times, it is desirable to give investors the >opportunity >to profit on their investment, like contributing organs in the body, but >not to enable >them to act like a cancerous-cell, maximizing profit by all means, and >choking society >via monopoles and cartels (which is the situation today) > >to summarize: just saying "do real R&D and you will not suffer from >copycats" seems >naive in my oppinion, real R&D will get hit the worst from copycats. >but the situation today is too tilted in the investors' and lawyers' favour. > >> >> > >-- >-- regards > >+--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >+ Guy Baruch , Plasma Laboratory, Weizmann Institue. >+ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >+ phone: 972-8-934-2211 >+--------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >If you've got something in your pocket that says, "In God We Trust" on it, >please send it to your local church where it belongs, before it's too late! > > ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
