Re: [ox-en] [ox] Guardian 2002-03-12: Patent Nonsense (fwd)

• From: grok <grok sprint.ca>
• Date: 03 Apr 2002 17:38:28 -0500

On Tue, 2002-03-12 at 18:16, Graham Seaman wrote:

The article just got onto slashdot

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/03/12/1956208.shtml?tid=155

So far the replies are all in favour of patents (in general, not for
software, and with quite a few people making an exception for '3rd world'
countries where food or medicine is concerned).
I'm surprised. I would have expected that at least the ultra-libertarian
people (the esr side of things) would be against patents as a monopoly
enforced by law. But not in this discussion. Is this just a sign of how
far the original slashdot readership has drifted away, or is it really
common opinion that patents are basically a good thing unless appplied to
software? Why do people see software patents as so different? I guess it's
natural among people who write software, but why are people who do so 
quick to dismiss problems with patents outside software? Maybe I'm being
too hasty, perhaps the good posts will come later ;-)

Graham

I think it's pretty clear by now that the Free Software -- or GPL --
Movement is still laboring under the influence of rampant neo-liberal
libertarian thought (brought on like gangbusters thru the 'dotcom'
speculation bubble) -- whether that's been given a Left or anarchist
tinge lately. Many of these people are still in the process of finding
out what a complete crock the kult of Ayn Rand Thought actually is...

This lack of consistency only demonstrates IMO a lack of thinking things
thru. Marxists like myself may not be knowledgeable enuff on many
matters -- but we at least know that marxism is inherently able to
'self-correct'; eventually anyway (its being really a true science).



-- grok.







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• Follow-Ups:
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  • Re: [ox-en] [ox] Guardian 2002-03-12: Patent Nonsense (fwd)
    • From: Graham Seaman

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