[YBA] i4i vs MS?

[geoffrey mendelson]

On Aug 13, 2009, at 6:03 PM, Shlomi Fish wrote:
>
> I'm all for making money out of good ideas, but I still think that  
> people need
> to take the necessary effort in taking these ideas forward, instead  
> of just
> issuing vague, generic and/or trivial software patents that prevent  
> people
> from developing similar programs. Copyrights gives enough protection  
> for
> software and for making money of it, while software patents tend to  
> do more
> harm than good.

Why are software ideas different than any other ideas? Not only does  
your last statement make no sense, it discriminates against software  
developers and is totally unsubstanisated.

While I very much support FOSS (and public domain software, which  is  
what it was called before people started to make money off of it), I  
support the right for people who invent new software to protect their  
rights. Copyrights do not protect them "enough", it still allows  
someone who is as smart or smarter than they are to take their idea  
and sell it.

I have had many conversations with a competitors about startups that  
had interesting ideas that made them unique. The conversations always  
go something like "what makes them different is that they do xxx and  
we don't", I ask "when will you have it", and they answer something  
like "next week".

Very soon everyone does it, and the startup disappears, taking with it  
the life savings of the seed investors. I can't speak for anyone else,  
but the people I know are relatively honest, if the startup had filled  
a US provisional patent and claimed (as their right) "patent pending  
technology" they would not.

I also have had experience with people who are not as honest and do it  
anyway, but that's a different subject.

It's even happened in the last few months to someone on this list,  
they announced their existance and looked for employees on this list,  
which caused a competitor who is a lurker to look at their web site  
and a week later we had the exact conversation I mentioned above. He  
has a big company, they were one or two people looking for some part  
time employees.

Is that the effect on the "software industry" you wish to have?

Geoff.
-- 
geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Jerusalem Israel geoffreymendelson at gmail.com