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

[Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda]

On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 10:41 AM, Shlomi Fish <shlomif at shlomifish.org>wrote:

> 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.
>
>
Or that the person is using a Hebrew keyboard, in which it is customary to
use shift to type English capital letters in the middle of writing Hebrew.
In some malfunctioning R2L systems, it is the only way to get English
characters into Hebrew text without messing up the directions.



> Regards,
>
>         Shlomi Fish
>
>
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
> Parody of "The Fountainhead" - http://shlom.in/towtf
>
> Q2: Busy people are unproductive. We are very productive and so we’re never
> busy.
>     — Star Trek, “We, the Living Dead” by Shlomi Fish
>
> Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .
>
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>



-- 
Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda.
http://ladypine.org
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