FW: Results of "downloading compressed program images" request

[Brian Cuthie <brian@systemix.com>]

Now, I would argue the opposite (naturally ;-).  The way I see it, there
are three options:

1) Make everything freely available, the natural consequence being,
IMHO,  that we all go out of business.

2) Patent everything, thus protecting intellectual property rights while
publicly dicslosing the implementation details of everything.  The
cosequences here are much more widespread than (1), since eventually it
will become difficult to build *anything* without tripping over someone
else's patents.  That software *can* be patented seems like a real
stretch to me.

3) Keep trade secrets secret.  This approach seems to have the fewest
consequences.  The company that invested in a product's development gets
to make a living selling it, while everyone else is free to reimplement
it at will. The entire GNU project is a fine example of this approach.
If (2) prevailed, FSF would spend each of every day in court defending
its patent infingement for simple things, such as a program to translate
high-level computer language programs into machine object code.

My own fear is that we will all live to see the day when (2) makes it
impossible to be viable as a small company.

-brian

>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Richard Stallman [SMTP:rms@santafe.edu]
>Sent:	Wednesday, January 21, 1998 11:27 PM
>To:	ralph_muha@ycrdi.com
>Cc:	crossgcc@cygnus.com
>Subject:	Re: Results of "downloading compressed program images" request
>
>    we're not talking about PC hardware!  we're talking about standalone
>    products:
>
>I see the difference, but I don't think the difference is all that
>significant.  Technical trade secrecy is always
>antisocial--discouraging it is one of the stated reasons for having a
>patent system--and while the amount of harm it does varies from case
>to case, it does not deserve sympathy.
>