Sep 242010
May 192010
These douche-nozzles just ruined my morning: Microsoft sues Salesforce.com over patents. Megacorps with extensive patent portfolios suing to protect their legal right to a monopoly. Somebody poke me in the eye with a lawn dart, please. At least Billy G personally has better things to do — like rid the world of dirty little mosquitoes. Could someone please explain to me how this makes the software I use better? How does it promote technological innovation or advancement? Moreover, what do software patents contribute to the quality of our collective life? I’ll say it one more time: “Software development is both a science and an art. Patenting any aspect of it is like patenting the pirouette, the appendectomy, the color blue, or a method to identify asteroids that may [...]
Admittedly, I do not own an iPod, but consider it a symbol for my point. I got to thinking about this the other day when I became wholly frustrated at not being able to legally make backup copies of movies that I thought I had purchased. Naturally, I started cursing copy protection technolgies and pined for the days of recording the latest Van Halen LP — these were made of vinyl, kiddies — to cassette so I could listen to it in my Z28 stereo on the way to school. (Insert nostalgiac moment here.) Was the music on that duped cassette “free”? Of course not, but I was free to do for my personal use with that music as I so chose because I had purchased that right [...]
