[Visionaries] Exploring the noosphere

[Peter Minten]

Hi folks,

patents are the greatest threat to Free Software programmers. They are the
nuclear weapons of the noosphere, capable of making whole areas unusable to
those who are not mutated by the Dark Side of the Force. Currently our defense
(in the EU) is mainly watching our steps and lobbying. If we are really lucky
the lobbying will work, I'm pessimistic though. There is another way to keep our
freedom however, play their own rules against them. Patents can be blocked by
prior art, the first one to discover something and document it has the right to
patent it or to refrain from patenting.

Patents are basically a race in the noosphere, the team that arrives first in a
new area get's to keep it or share it. So to prevent from getting hit by patents
we simply have to race the Evil Alliance (MS and co) to the new areas. If we
arrive there first we have to document what we see, in a way that can not be
misunderstood by lawyers. If the Evil Alliance wants to file a patent anyway we
have an effective defense.

This will not be an easy task. The effort needed for this is enourmous, it
requires a Free Software R&D project as big as GNU. The price is also enourmous
however. If the FS community gets the ideas before the Evil Alliance it can
effectively push through open standards and it's software can be in use before
that of the Evil Alliance, causing mayhem in the proprietary software business.

Greetings,

Peter