“In Technology Wars, Using the Patent as a Sword” - New York Times Feature

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Geoffrey,

On Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:02:18 +0200
"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <geoffreymendelson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Shlomi Fish wrote:
> 
> > One proponent of software patents on this list is Geoffrey, who
> > claims it helped protect some obscure startups against people
> > copying their ideas. However, given the huge and increasing
> > spending on patent litigation, the problem of patent trolls and the
> > fact that “In particular, between 1987 and 1994 , software patents
> > issuance rose 195%, yet real company funded R&D fell by 21% in
> > these (software) industries while rising by 25% in industries in
> > general.” (see http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html ).
> 
> Just to amplify that fact, the cost of the computer I used in 1979 to
> do operating system development was about $5 million dollars. It was
> a dual processor system and on Sunday mornings, I got one of the
> processors to myself if I needed it. This was back in the days when
> you single stepped an operating system by pushing a button on the
> console.
> 
> By 1989, a similar system was about $250,000.
> 
> By 1994, everyone was doing their development on SUN computers at 
> $10,000 each, or developing for Windows or BSD on 486 and pentium 
> computers, which sold for $2,000.
> 
> So the cost of development shifted from hardware in the 1970's to 
> salaries in the 1990's. During which time the salaries in dollars
> (not adjusted) doubled.
> 
> Note that in 1979 I did my software development in BAL and PL/I until 
> around 1991 or 1992, and from there on in C and later in PERL.
> 

Just a note: one should never write perl or Perl in all-capital letters:

http://perl-begin.org/learn/Perl-perl-but-not-PERL/

Writing "PERL" is usually an indication that the person does not really
know what they are talking about.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish


-- 
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Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
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    — Star Trek, “We, the Living Dead” by Shlomi Fish

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