Re: "Bill Gates and other communists" article by RMS

Hi,

I require authoritative information on Patent and
Copyright Law, particularly concerning its impact on
GNU/Linux and Free Software. I am looking for
authoritative, and legal information and commentaries
on the current state of law. Could any of you
recommend some ?

I do NOT want evangelism material on GNU/Linux itself,
rather I would like papers and treatises that cover
the impact of Patents on future development within the
GNU/Linux community. The article posted by Anivar is
very good, and an *almost* perfect example of what I
need - what would be more perfect, is dense legal
information, than articles targetting the layman.

Thanks
Rajeev J Sebastian
--- Anivar Aravind <[email protected]> wrote:

> From Slash dot:
> soloport writes "C|Net has published an article,
> written by RMS, in
> which Stallman points out that Gates is merely
> calling the kettle
> communist. Toward the end of the article, Stallman
> strengthens his
> point by feeding Bill his own words. Back in 1991,
> Bill said, in an
> internal memo: 'If people had understood how patents
> would be granted
> when most of today's ideas were invented and had
> taken out patents,
> the industry would be at a complete standstill
> today...A future
> start-up with no patents of its own will be forced
> to pay whatever
> price the giants choose to impose.' Now, if only
> Bill were as
> clear-minded on the subjects of Innovation and
> Interoperability."
>=20
> This is a Followup of  CNET interview with Bill
> Gates
>
http://news.com.com/Gates+taking+a+seat+in+your+den/2008-1041_3-5514121.h=
tml?tag=3Dnl
>=20
> Bill Gates and other communists
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D
>  February 15, 2005, 3:55 AM PT
> By Richard Stallman
>=20
> http://tinyurl.com/5ouyy
>=20
> When CNET News.com asked Bill Gates about software
> patents, he shifted
> the subject to "intellectual property," blurring the
> issue with
> various other laws.
>=20
> Then he said anyone who won't give blanket support
> to all these laws
> is a communist. Since I'm not a communist but I have
> criticized
> software patents, I got to thinking this might be
> aimed at me.
>=20
> When someone uses the term "intellectual property,"
> typically he's
> either confused himself, or trying to confuse you.
> The term is used to
> lump together copyright law, patent law and various
> other laws, whose
> requirements and effects are entirely different. Why
> is Mr. Gates
> lumping these issues together? Let's study the
> differences he has
> chosen to obscure.
>=20
> Software developers are not up in arms against
> copyright law, because
> the developer of a program holds the copyright on
> the program; as long
> as the programmers wrote the code themselves, no one
> else has a
> copyright on their code. There is no danger that
> strangers could have
> a valid case of copyright infringement against them.
>=20
> Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open
> Internet with protocols
> anyone can implement is communism.
> Patents are a different story. Software patents
> don't cover programs
> or code; they cover ideas (methods, techniques,
> features, algorithms,
> etc.). Developing a large program entails combining
> thousands of
> ideas, and even if a few of them are new, the rest
> needs must have
> come from other software the developer has seen. If
> each of these
> ideas could be patented by someone, every large
> program would likely
> infringe hundreds of patents. Developing a large
> program means laying
> oneself open to hundreds of potential lawsuits.
> Software patents are
> menaces to software developers, and to the users,
> who can also be
> sued.
>=20
> A few fortunate software developers avoid most of
> the danger. These
> are the megacorporations, which typically have
> thousands of patents
> each, and cross-license with each other. This gives
> them an advantage
> over smaller rivals not in a position to do
> likewise. That's why it is
> generally the megacorporations that lobby for
> software patents.
>=20
> Today's Microsoft is a megacorporation with
> thousands of patents.
> Microsoft said in court that the main competition
> for MS Windows is
> "Linux," meaning the free software GNU/Linux
> operating system. Leaked
> internal documents say that Microsoft aims to use
> software patents to
> stop the development of GNU/Linux.
>=20
> When Mr. Gates started hyping his solution to the
> problem of spam, I
> suspected this was a plan to use patents to grab
> control of the Net.
> Sure enough, in 2004 Microsoft asked the IETF
> (Internet Engineering
> Task Force) to approve a mail protocol that
> Microsoft was trying to
> patent. The license policy for the protocol was
> designed to forbid
> free software entirely. No program supporting this
> mail protocol could
> be released as free software--not under the GNU GPL
> (General Public
> License), or the MPL (Mozilla Public License), or
> the Apache license,
> or either of the BSD licenses, or any other.
>=20
> The IETF rejected Microsoft's protocol, but
> Microsoft said it would
> try to convince major ISPs to use it anyway. Thanks
> to Mr. Gates, we
> now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone
> can implement is
> communism; it was set up by that famous communist
> agent, the U.S.
> Department of Defense.
>=20
> --
> Anivar Aravind
> ----------------------------------------
> |  Free Software Users Group - CUSAT   |
> |  http://fsug-cusat.port5.com/        |
> ----------------------------------------
>=20



	=09
__________________________________=20
Do you Yahoo!?=20
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!=20
http://my.yahoo.com=20
=20

----------------------------------------
|  Free Software Users Group - CUSAT   |
|  http://fsug-cusat.port5.com/        |
----------------------------------------