Intellectual Property

An intellectual property (IP) forum, hosted by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) in Washington last week, brought together government and industry to discuss how businesses are being screwed over for profits by people (aka customers) who pirate their software or have no respect for IP. OK. Who is BSA? Just about every big software producer. Do you expect them to say anything other than stop people stealing their stuff? IP and the patent process that makes IP is corrupt. It doesn't work. The fact that software is treated under the same laws that government works of art is amazing. Most software have a shelf life of just a couple years, with new versions coming out at least annually, and support maintain for around 5-years, sometimes 10. After that, the software is displaced by newer offerings. Yet, the software that's no longer supported, not longer useful, is under strict ownership. Think of the System V code that's alleged to by in Linux. For some processes, there is only one way to code it. That should be protected? There's lots of bullshit here -- the big software companies swear that piracy stifles innovation. While large companies do have deep pockets, they've time and again shown that their R&D labs can't out-innovate startups. Large companies are risk adverse -- they don't support or encourage a culture of innovation. The laws governing patents and copyright need to change for IT because it's the large companies that are abusing it -- not their customers. Large companies are using IP to stifle innovation. That's why they are attempting to use IP to protect themselves against developing economies. No wonder developing economies are adopting open source technologies -- in the long run, large companies that abuse the process of innovation via IP enforcement will lose up. SCO already knows what the future holds for it. For some statistics on the subject, check out this Wired article.