Jeremy Allison on Innovation and Patents

21 October 2007

Jeremy Allison is fast becoming one of my heroes. Not only for the great technical work he has done with Samba, but also for his principled support of free software. He quit Novell in protest after they signed their patent pact with the devil, and he and the Samba team gave an early vote of support to GPL v3 by moving Samba to the new license soon after its release.

He also regularly contributes thoughtful essays to Tux Deluxe. I just found The Innovation Game in my feed reader, which has some positive points about innovation in free software, but also deals with a depressing subject, Microsoft and software patents:

So who could possibly be against this wealth of the commons? People wishing to own innovative ideas, that's who. Not just one specific implementation of an idea, but the very ideas themselves. I'm referring to software patents, which have recently been used in a very direct threat against Free Software development.

[...]

Many companies own software patents, but Microsoft is the only software company that has so utterly rejected the Free Software ethos that every new piece of Free Software that others welcome and immediately attempt to commercialize is seen by them as a blow to their survival. Microsoft has painted themselves into a corner where they feel that for them to continue to be successful, Free Software must die. I don't mean cease to exist of course, that'd be impossible. But die in the sense that Microsoft would like to be paid for every commercial use of Free Software, thus destroying the very principle behind the movement, and destroying any innovation it creates. No one wants to be an unpaid employee. It's not enough for them to take this common wealth and make money on it the way all others do, they want to be able to bleed it dry without having to participate on the same terms as everyone else.

[...]

Software is human thought, human ideas. It's as pure as music or mathematics or physics. People who promote software patents want to own the very thoughts in your head. A world with widespread software patents, globally enforced, is best described in the very prophetic words of George Orwell in "1984" describing "Big Brother":

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

No unauthorized innovation allowed in Oceania, all ideas must have an owner. For the good of "innovation", with its original meaning, Free Software must be free of software patents.

--Jeremy Allison, The Innovation Game

And lots of other good stuff in the article. Somehow it all comes across as more reasoned and nuanced than my own post on the topic recently at Free Software Magazine: Thoughts on invention, innovation, and patents from 'Guns, Germs, and Steel', but you may enjoy that post also, especially if you like vague and incoherent rants. (Also published on this site; see related links below.)

Anyway, with people like Jeremy around writing free software and writing about it, it gives me a little more hope for the future of this enterprise.

Related:

by Scott Carpenter on 21 October 2007 at 6:00 am
permalink | comments (3) | filed under free software
tagged: innovation, patents, quotes

Comments

I did enjoy both rants - thanks! Software patenting is theft and should be - must be - vigorously opposed.

Posted by Paul on 22 October 2007 at 7:50 am

Thanks, Paul -- glad to hear it. I can see software patents really slowing things to a crawl and closing off all the great opportunities of p2p and individual participation in software.

Posted by Scott Carpenter on 22 October 2007 at 10:46 am

Here's a little rant of my own:

I used to think that it was indeed 'only' FOSS that was threatened by software patents, and that the morally bankrupt cretins responsible for patent system policy in the US and in the EPC signatory states and elsewhere would likely be able to continue, indefinitely, to feel quite comfortable with their ignorant and reckless extremism. I used to worry that perhaps my feelings of disgust and anger on discovering patents such as those on the RSA and FHT algorithms were probably entirely irrational. After all, patents are necessary for and promote innovation, right?

Then I read up on the history, philosophy and economics of the patent system - from Jefferson's eminently rational and ethical views, through Machlup's prescient warnings, to the most recent research by Jim Bessen et al, and - at the time of the notorious CII Directive in Europe - the famous petition condemning that Directive signed by several prominent economists. Of course it didn't help my blood pressure to find out that there was in fact no good economic rationale for software patents, and the fact that I was lied to by my own government, by EC bureaucrats, and by an ex VP of the EPO didn't exactly help either.

But despite having to read up on this dreary subject (and having to suffer the excruciatingly ghastly experience of reading hundreds of patent documents ;-), at least now I feel as secure in my opposition to software patenting and its innumerate and illiterate proponents as I do when opposing that other great affliction of modern times: pseudoscience and its practitioners and supporters. As I once wrote in an email, shortly after someone from the EC/EPO had claimed that the EPO does not grant software patents, "The EPO is to patent system economics as the Discovery Institute is to biology - minus the integrity and honesty".

Posted by Paul on 23 October 2007 at 1:08 am

You can follow any responses to this entry through the
comments feed.