Open vs. Closed: The Battle Rages On

J.W. Bizzaro • September 3, 2000

Open vs. Closed: The Battle Rages On

``Two Internet veterans want U.S. patent reform to start with a free, Web-based database of patents and with the creation of `antipatents,' which would give credit for non-patented inventions while preventing corporations from later claiming the idea. In their essay `Transparent Patents,' released Sept. 1, Media.org co-founders Rebecca Hargrave and Carl Malamud pitch several new strategies to the growing chorus of voices calling for patent reform. The two even suggest the U.S. Supreme Court should nullify the `thousands of bad patents that have been issued for business methods.'''

NewsForge: Patents vs. Antipatents
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=00/09/01/1755259

Media.org: Transparent Patents
http://voice.media.org/essays/patent.html

``In a report to President Clinton last year, a group of leading computer scientists warned that the nation faced a troubling `software gap.' The group, made up of corporate executives and university researchers, said that programmers simply could not keep pace with exploding demand for high-quality software – the computer code needed for everything from Internet commerce to nuclear weapons design. To bridge the gap, the group said, the nation must not only train more skilled programmers but also explore fresh, even radical, approaches to developing and maintaining software.''

NY Times: Can `Open Source' Bridge the Software Gap?
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/08/biztech/articles/28code.html

``qbasicprogrammer writes: `Vital Source Technologies is now providing time-limited medical textbooks to universities. Password protected books as predicted in The Right To Read by Richard Stallman are finally becoming a reality.' Starting on Oct. 28, (when the other part of the DMCA comes into effect), you could face a civil lawsuit and criminal penalties of up to five years in jail and a fine of $500,000 for reading someone else's textbook. See the NYU FAQ, the Advogato discussion, or the company crowing about new revenue opportunities.''

Slashdot: The Right To Read: Time Limited Textbooks
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/08/28/1158221

GNU.org: The Right to Read, by Richard Stallman:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

``Open-source standards will completely reshape the software industry by 2004, according to a recent report by Forrester Research. IBM and Dell will eventually triumph, while Oracle and Microsoft will struggle to cope with a changing marketplace. Forrester forecasts that within four years, all traditional software vendors will need to change their proprietary business models to open-source ones, or drastically lower the price of enterprise application licenses.''

Wired: It'll Be an Open-Source World
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,38240,00.html

All references by Slashdot.com.

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