Re: [Visionaries] Exploring the noosphere

[Dean Michael Berris]

however, the essence of free software and the open source movement is about 
freedom to the source. the idea is to put it in where everyone can be able to 
see, use, modify, and hack at.

for example, the linux kernel. if linus torvalds hadn't put it under the GPL and 
allowed everyone else to be able to look at, hack at, and use the kernel, 
someone else wouldv'e put a lid on it before he did and called it his own. 
previous art could be used as a base for a modification for which you will apply 
a patent for (look at the inline skates, the aircraft engine, and many more). 
more exactly, if the linux kernel wasn't under the GPL and wasn't copyrighted to 
linus torvalds, some greedy hacker-con-businessman would've gotten the source, 
modified it as a new operating system design and concept being different from 
linux (i.e. microkernel architecture instead of monolithic style) and apply and 
get a patent for. had that happened, who knows what would've happened to linux...

so the point i'm driving at here, is that yes -- we have to get there first and 
allow everyone else to be able to get there too, but not take everything for 
their own. it's much like a playground where the poineers (or the makers) could 
claim for all their lives that they built it. but having it opened to the public 
allows others to get there too, but not claim it for their own. a playground 
isn't as fun if it werent open to the public, and ideas from the users wouldn't 
get through to the makers if they hadn't opened it in the first place.

so i agree, not only for the race to ground breaking technology in open source 
and free software, but to the improvement of the current state of software 
development.

more power to all of us.

David Sugar wrote:
> I will offer a counter-point to this idea.  Doing this can be used to create 
> "prior art" that may successfully overturn a future patent, but such an 
> outcome is neither certain, nor prevents others from successfully securing 
> "invalid" patents anyway against ignorent examiners, and then potentially 
> causing emmense problems until/unless somebody then comes along with enough 
> funds comes along to make use of the prior art thus posted.  There is also 
> some risk that establishing such a list or site may itself become a source 
> for patent "mining" by unscroupoulus entities who will realize the cost of 
> securing the patent is less than the cost required by others to overturn it.
>
> David

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