FEATURE: Patents in software a potential 'minefield': Stallman

Patents in software a potential 'minefield', warns Free Software founder

By Frederick Noronha

PANAJI (Goa), Nov 6: India should avoid the "minefield" of introducing
patents in the software world, Free Software Foundation head Dr Richard M
Stallman warned industry and politicians here, asking to avoid such a
trap.

"Software patients is a very critical issue, and I understand the Indian
parliament is considering whether to do so," Stallman (49) said at a dinner
meet organised by the Goa Chambers of Commerce and Industry during his
first-ever three-day visit to this small state.

The head of an impressive campaign to keep software 'free' and
non-proprietary, which has led to the birth of the alternate GNU/Linux
operating system today threatening to challenge corporations like
Microsoft, Dr Stallman warned that patients were not suited for a field
like software.

"When writing a (software) program, you typically combine different ideas.
Anyone trying to develop software -- unless its very small or limited in
size -- is going to be stepping onto a minefield (in case software patents
are accepted)," he cautioned.

Since "many good ideas go into your program", there's no such thing as "the"
patent, he said Richard Matthew Stallman, who began the Free Software
Movement in 1984 inspired by the ideals of the American War of Independence.

"This is an issue that is going to affect all software developers. In the
US, there are already over 100,000 software patents. So, that means, there
are a lot of things we (as developers) are not allowed to do," he argued.

He called software patents "incredibly dangerous". Right now, the European
Union was also making a decision over this issue, he noted. Besides, he
suggested, countries from the West would be better equipped to file patents,
and also pump in money to fight cases over the same.

Stallman, a strong votary of Free Software -- this refers to the freedom
offered to the developer and user, not the price -- underlined the
benefits of such operating systems as against proprietorial and
closed-source products (where the critical code that goes into the program
is not publicly available to the buyer). 

Speaking at the meet, Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar suggested that
higher-secondary students getting state-subsidised computers under a
'cyberage' scheme could possibly be given a GNU/Linux-based operating
system (OS), rather than a proprietorial OS. 

National Institute of Oceanography (Goa) scientist Dr Albert Gouveia said
his institute had been running an early version of GNU/Linux right from
1993. 

Businessmen appreciate the cost-saving aspects of this operating system,
while programmers say it offers them wide freedom while also making
computing affordable, a critical factor in a country like India. 

"The way I learnt to be a good programmer was when we worked at MIT, and had
the freedom to (tinker around with the code). I didn't know enough (of
programming) then. But I could learn because we could work on it. Today Free
Software gives you that opportunity," said the bearded, long-haired,
pun-loving genius of a programmer.

Stallman, among other things, wrote the first extensible Emacs text editor
there in 1975, for which, in 1991, he received the Grace Hooper Award from
the Association for Computing Machinery. He is also the recipient of a
MacArthur Foundation genius grant.

Speaking earlier, Stallman opined that two countries in the globe -- India
and Brazil -- have been showing an "increasing awareness" over addressing
the social aspects of computing. Both countries have been working on
building affordable computing solutions, and take IT to the commonman in a
number of ways. (ENDS)