A global coalition of more than 80 software companies, associations and developers has declared the 24th of September to be the "World Day Against Software Patents". … A global petition asking to effectively stop software patents worldwide will be launched on 24 September 2008, together with specific additional requests for certain regions such as Europe, the United States or India. — read more
Hmm.. I'm still half in and half out on software patents. They go too far, but at the same time, they protect people's paychecks. I'm all for open source, but as someone working toward a software engineering degree, I know that I wouldn't want all of my hard work to be for nothing, so I can understand where all of these concerns about pirating software comes from.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, I view it as a consumer, and software is expensive! As a designer, especially, I know that I don't want to have to pay upwards of two grand for the Adobe suite products, which are integrated in my workflow - so in that sense, I am against software patents that would prohibit products such as Illustrator or Photoshop from being taken on as open source products. On top of which, I agree that allowing Open Source authors more free reign to take on projects helps us with advancement.
In the end, there are still pros and cons to argue out concerning patents, but I think that a compromise could be reached.
@work
ReplyDeleteThank you for such a great comment. Patents were perhaps introduced to reward innovation but bringing them to enforce silly software ideas doesn't go well with me.