On 10/15/06, Mano <manokaran@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"A software company does not patent any of its innovations (cute ones
included) and releases all its code to the general community. If theto
innovation is of value there will be dozens of other companies that seek
provide support for the same s/w undercutting prices to a level thatthrows
the original company out of business (if it is not properly managed).After
a period the market will only have highly efficient players who canaccount
for the productivity of every penny.
Now, the question is: Can these super efficient players afford sinkingkiller
money in research projects that might (just might) give them the next
app. Since developing a killer app is unpredictable, can these companiesCan
stay in business till their research team comes out with the 'killer'?
these companies do a Bell and employ the likes of Ken Thompson, Dennisvalue
Ritchi, Kernighan, Pike etc and not care for 5 years or so about what
they have added to their revenues? Would not the other efficient playersthinking
wipe such a company out of the market in a year? How will the free
of great minds be funded? And even if such a company gives out such aothers
product will it have sufficient time to recoup investments before the
catch up (the others can be super efficient because they did not spend a
penny on research and have got the source code for free)?"
"Physical product companies do not make that big a noise about reverse
engineering because the infrastructure cost of replicating the productis
itself a barrier to competition. Where the barrier is not strong enoughthe
product patents come in. Example, a Ferrari model is not patented but
suspension subsystem might be patented. So, if patents are OK in otherin
fields (where there are other barriers to copying) why is it a bad idea
s/w (where the barrier to copying is weak - by copying I mean rewritingthe
code... not pirating)?no
If the source code of a s/w is to be given out and also there are to be
s/w patents, how will a software company ensure that the product it hasjust
released in the market will earn them enough money to pay for moreresearch,
give the programmers a pay hike (the biggest cost for a s/w company) and
offer better returns to its investors? Will not another company lift the
code make fancy modifications to it (just enough to fool the courts) and
sell it at a much lesser price?
Of course, it can be argued that it benefits the end user by being less
expensive! But then, the govt giving free food, free clothes and freecash
also benefits end users. But does it benefit society?"
which the hacker community is only a subset) than proprietary ones.