Ahh, 2006. It seems like such a long time ago! Back then I was working at Red Hat on OLPC and Microsoft had just accused free software of being Unamerican and communist. It was a good time, honestly, to know that you were working on important things and that you were still able to rile up big companies into say foolish things. (Turns out that’s still pretty easy to do.)
I was talking with a co-worker here at Mozilla about the idea of connecting patent reform with the concept of what it means to be American. Many people who believe that software patents are a good thing often appeal to this idea. The cotton gin, apple pie and all that. But I was reminded of this talk by Eben Moglen that was given at the Red Hat summit where he talked about free software and patents in the context of the american experience. It’s still worth watching today.
Can’t view the video? Check out the original page and while you’re at it, get a friggin’ modern browser.
I missed the video at that time.
A great reference indeed.
Thanks for the link.
I’d have to say that Patents actually harm innovation, and thus, are anti-capitalistic. Many people want patent reform…I want patents repealed.
http://mises.org/story/2632 gives a good reason why. There are more reasons though.
No wonder that OSS guys complain about patent as they are actually only stealing commercial ideas.
Even OpenOffice will now start stealing Ribbons. Ubuntu is plain stealing from Windows 2000/XP user interface design and havent we spotted the one or other idea in FireFox in Opera earlier. if not *any*???
Stealing ideas suck.