I'll just come out and say it here, then: open-source is, inherently, at least partly communist. They both are plagued with similar problems: because the invisible hand is removed, the main driving force is personal; and only a fool is optimistic to think that everyone in charge is altruistic enough to be trusted with the power they have. For open-source software, this yields the problem that those few programmers who ARE in the middle, those that make the actual decisions as for what the actual program itself will be when released, have only their own desires to pursue. Which, as I've noticed, do NOT line up with the mainstream. This is why, for instance, Firefox's market share is less than 1/3 that of Internet Explorer, in spite of the latter being bad enough as it is, and both free; (and not exactly hidden) it's hardly the best browser if you're not like the core group at the Mozilla Foundation.
Also, ossie, I'd appreciate if you'd stop voting other replies up and down just based on whether you agree/disagree with them. It doesn't paint a very favorable picture of yourself.[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]Nottheking,Thank you for explanation of your position. You and Chris312 are applying that I am socialist or communist. For the record I am not. I do support Open Source because make sense. For example, recent data shows that programmers working for open source projects are making about 40% more then programmers working on close source projects.(http://www.crn.com/it-channel/206900235)[/citation]
That was precisely my point: those people aren't making money off of open-source, but rather, they have the time to spend because they're making enough money already, working a REAL job during the day. In other words, they're programming NON-open-source stuff during that time, for which they make money. This world ain't free.
[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]Yes my example is non-sense at all, as Chris312 noted and that exactly is my point. The current patent system is non-sense if our goal, as stated in our (USA) constitution, is to promote innovation.[/citation]
I do understand most enthusiasts aren't exactly known for being politically savvy. Hence why you see a huge array of various career paths leading into politics, (entrepreneurs, lawyers, farmers, physicians, military officers, and professors being the most common, as I recall) but virtually no techies. But still, I'd feel a bit better about reading your posts if you'd actually bothered to read up on what you professed to speak of beforehand. Especially when you claim that Patents are even mentioned in the US Constitution.
[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]And again I can not steal your idea. See my argument in earlier comment (02/12/2009 6:33 AM). The government assigning monopolies through patents are left over from very yearly capitalist theory called Mercantilism. This theory has been rejected by modern economists promoting the ‘free-market’, starting with Adam Smith.[/citation]
While you are correct to note that mercantilism is heavily rejected and refuted by actual capitalists as much as actual capitalists refute communism, and wouldn't even be making much of a stretch to argue that a lot of the largest multi-national corporations act in mercantilist, rather than capitalist, manners, (especially if you were speaking in regards to copyrights) you cannot argue that patents are a mercantilist idea. In fact, they are, as defined in their reason and function, inherently VERY capitalist. The basic principle of mercantilism lies in the tangibility of wealth; that the overal level is un-changing, and is possessable. While patents make intellectual property possessable, by definition they absolutely MUST expire after a set time period, and often sooner. This inherently does provide a punishment for companies that try to over-step themselves; if they patent an idea before they actually have it working, and then spend the next 20 years to actually get it to work, they've just made an invention that immediately lands in the public domain; they spent all that money, and get no protection for it. In other words, they've just poured potentially millions upon millions of dollars to develop something that, in their prior greed, they just squandered their real chance to rake in profit on it; sure, they can sell it, but now others can as well without investing anything into development, thus providing for competition.
Also, there's the other bit that kills any possible idea of patents being mercantilist, and that's the fact that ideas are not finite. Basically, I doubt anyone's going to run out of ideas or inventions any time soon, or perhaps even in all of humanity's existence. That literally makes patents impossible to mercantilist, since there would literally be never any chance to have "all" of the ideas.
The existence of patents versus the non-existence of them has the primary effect of placing high value on inventing, value that would not be there in the monetary market without them, as the value would be placed on something else, namely dirtier stuff like theft and corruption. (again, Trofim Lysenko)
Lastly, I'd note that patents also create challenges, to spur innovation; while you cannot simply make an improved version of a patented invention and have it be your own, you can make an entirely different alternative that is superior to the first choice, in one or more ways, and market that. but without the first idea, there is no challenge to tackle. A strong case of this idea is with Hybrid vehicles: virtually every hybrid car in existence follows a design that is similar enough to what Toyota developed in the 1990s and subsequently patented for their Prius. Now, because like virtually every invention these days, it falls into an already existing market, it faces competition even from companies without that invention. Hence, there is still incentive for them to license their technology out to every other automaker, which is precisely what they've done. Meanwhile, General Motors took a look at Toyota's patented THS/HSD technology, (Toyota Hybrid System/Hybrid Synergy Drive) and thought they could make a better alternative invention. This resulted in them inventing their new E-Flex technology, something that in all likelihood would not have existed had GM been able to simply make their own cars on the THS/HSD technology without paying any royalties.
[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]I think the monopolies are showing their ugly face right now again and we need to stop that. You are absolutely correct that in infringement cases the defendants have no incentive to admit copying, but you are omitting that plaintiffs has very strong incentive to show it. It guaranties triple award and yet they don’t.[/citation]
Basically, it shows that it's harder to claim that someone copied when they didn't, then it is for someone to copy, claim that they idependently invented it, and got away with it. Were it the other way around, the majority of cases would've been come out as rulings the defendant NOT copying; either because that was true for >50% of the cases, or that, of course, >50% of the cases containing lies would rule that the defendant did not copy.
Inversely, were it so easy to claim that someone copied one's invention and prove it, there would be a far larger quantity of such rulings, if not the majority of them, a majority being the fact that it's far easier to steal someone's invention rather than to invent it independelty, since stealing merely needs one to see the patent.
[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]The fact of life is that independent inventions exist. Any new scientific theory has to be confirmed by two or more independent researches, before it is accepted.[/citation]
These new sentences have zero practical relationship to each other; scientific theory is not the same thing as invention; you CANNOT patent a scientific theory. Also, a scientific theory takes more than 2 researchers; generally it takes hundreds, if not thousands, of repeat experiments, conducted over a decade or more. Inventions are the product of applied science & engineering, also known as technology. Scientific theories are the product of theroetical science, the collective of natural science, behavioral science, and social science. The former group follows the process of invention and thus is not technically science; the latter group follows the scientific method.
[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]I also believe that all inventors will have better profits if the current patent system is removed because the only away for companies to stay competitive on the market would be constantly to invent. All this will result in higher demand for highly educated and creative people.[/citation]
Not in the slightest; companies would cease bothering to invent entirely, since it would cost money, when they could just otherwise seek out those that have inventions and ideas, and steal them. Basically, corporate R&D would cease to exist, and be replaced with corporate espionage. They would have ZERO demand for educated and creative people, merely for those who were incredibly glib and slippery, or others of untrustworthy character.
The basic idea is that yes, with a patent, a company can profit from an idea for a number of years. But you forget that companies try to make money, so why stop with just one invention to make money, rather than trying for more? They wouldn't try aggressive inventing if they couldn't have their inventions protected; in the end, the evidence is right in the article here, that Microsoft didn't just stop with Windows, but went on to try to tackle other markets as well, hence all their fuss over Microsoft's "Surface" technology. And what if a company hadn't? Well, that's what competition's for, to invent a superior alternative.
Furthemore, profiting from these earlier inventions has allowed them to be able to AFFORD some of this inventing, which has cost a lot of money just for development, and certainy was out of the range of what a single programmer, or even a group of programmers, could manage with their off-time. This is why the rate of invention in this world is accelerating, as it did entirely independent of the open-source movement; businesses got better and better organized, planned better, and hence started pouring more and more money into research.
[citation][nom]ossie[/nom]As for the argument that capitalism is the supreme form for a society, just take a look at the actual world economy, the direct effect of corporate and bankster greed.[/quote]
That was not a function of capitalism. That was a function of investors and banks treating capitalist securities like they were mercantilist wealth. Risk is supposed to be an inherent part of capitalism, yet the banks absolutely ignored risk. Again, I already gave evidence why socialism/communism/whatever you call it doesn't work, as it ironically promotes greed even MORE, and merely limits the greed to a select privileged few.
[citation][nom]ossie[/nom]Getting back to the subject, patents, it is enough to analyze the example from the article with "surface computing". If you take a closer look it's plain nothing, it describes just, in very broad terms, some form of interaction between a personal object and a computing system, without going any deeper, which "absolutely" needed a lot of R&D of the yearly 8 billion mentioned, except a lot of lawyer fees. It isn't a real invention, but will surely be used as a roadblock and coercion mean for everyone who will (try to) do something specific, which would just peripherally resemble the patented "invention".[/citation]
I would say that if they're putting a lot of perspiration into their work, and it's new and previous as-yet never realized, it's most certainly an invention. And you know darn well that Microsoft makes its money by selling its products to a LOT of people. So, it would be a complete surprise if Microsoft planned to do anything aside from that. And if Microsoft patented it before they had it ready? Then that's a number of years whittled away at their usable protection; remember, unlike copyrights, patents don't last effectively forever. Their pre-invention protection may sound a little silly, but for now, it appears to be that they're ensuring that no one gets a peek and manages to be "inspired" (also known as "only stealing PART of their idea") enough to develop their own invention before Microsoft can finish.
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