[lit-ideas] Re: EU Parliament Strucks Down Software Patent Law

  • From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 20:47:07 -0400

Eric Yost writes:

: Judy, on Teemu's news:  terrific.
: 
: ____
: 
: Is there some way of rewarding the creators of elegant and effective 
: software code? Is there an equivalent of the MacArthur Grant for 
: programmers? I'm really in the dark about this. How do brilliant 
: programmers get free of financial constraints (as successful artists do) 
: so they don't have to become associated with a corporation or university?
: 
: Eric

To a certain extent the creation can be its own reward for programmers
as well as for artists.  From the beginning back in the days when 
there were only mainframe computers those who ran the machines had to 
write programs to solve particular problems and would then share them 
freely with others.  And now for some time we have had the idea of 
free or open source software which has been a great success.

Most brilliant programmers are associated with corporations or 
universities, but they are often encouraged to do their own
thing.  Thus Linus Thorvalds who developed the Linux operating
system is employed by a corporation. Others work as consultants
or receive funding from those who will benefit from their projects.

Today there are many programmers employed by companies like IBM
and Red Hat whose jobs are to write open source software.  And 
there is also the Free Software Foundation which supporta many
important free software projects and there are many other
not-for-profit software projects whose programmers often have
other jobs but contribute their time and skills because the
projects are interesting and worthwhile.

But I am not sure that the romantic idea of the brilliant artist
is really applicable to programmers.  Programmers are more like
artisans, although some of their products are indeed works of art.

One thing is quite clear---software patents may profit large companies
like Microsoft, but they do not reward brilliant programmers.  
Software patents are not granted for well-written code, but
rather for ideas that can be implemented in good code or in bad.
A software patent is the equivalent of a patent on the idea of
painting a landscape with a purple cow in it.  The actual painting
may or may not be brilliant or there may not even be an actual
painting incorporating the idea.  But once the patent is granted
anyone who wants to paint---brilliant or not---a landscape with a
purple cow will infringe the patent if they do not get a license.
(And the patent might even cover blue cows as well.)

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
 EMAIL: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    URL:  http://samsara.law.cwru.edu   
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