(Fwd) The GPL (was: Re: [Fsfe-ie] 1-page letter, faxes at the

[Fergal Daly]

On Saturday 27 September 2003 18:16, Niall Douglas wrote:
> For me it's not a matter of owning information - I believe that is 
> the free property of mankind and there's little the law can do to 
> change it. What it is about is that if I write a piece of software 
> which saves every company in the world ten euro per year, I see it 
> only as fair that every company in the world should pay me that ten 
> euro for the first year and thereafter the savings are mankind's.  
> 
> I don't care how it's done legally, but I cannot be swayed from the
> notion that if a person or group contributes significantly to the
> improvement of their fellow man, they should be adequately rewarded.
> This is one of the best features of capitalism - that taking risk is
> rewarded ie; entrepreneurship.

This bit puzzles me. This is exactly the purpose of patents, so why were you 
against software patents? Was it simply due to the excessive duration? In 
which case what about shit-hot clever ideas who's time has not yet come?

Do you think that software patents are not fundamentally flawed, just 
implemented badly?

F