Strategy (was Re: Improving copyright)

Rui Miguel Seabra rms at 1407.org
Sun May 16 16:03:52 UTC 2004


On Sat, 2004-05-15 at 14:04 +0100, Niall Douglas wrote:
> I had an idea for that - I don't know if it's similar to yours - 

I seriously doubt any good idea might come if it is based upon the
assumption that software patents do any good (except maybe to lawyers
and monopolists).

> companies could throw their software patents in a mutually owned 
> holding company. If any of the members gets sued for patent 
> infringement, the full weight of all the other patents is used to 
> countersue and each member agrees to contribute their share of the 
> legal costs.

Lawyer heaven.

> If big enough, this system could render software patents 
> unenforceable.

If the objective is to render software patents unenforceable, I have a
quicker way: respect TRIPs.

> I agree. However I think Phelps is there primarily to increase 
> regular revenue streams as people aren't going to shell out every 18 
> months for new Office and new Windows forever. However I do believe 
> he'll be working on a contingency plan as I outlined.

Phelps isn't in marketting, though. So I guess his objective is a lot
more aggressive.

> Right now it'd hurt MS more than help it to kill Linux. Why? Because 
> for anti-trust reasons MS needs a competitor to point at and say 
> "we're not a monopoly look!". It's exactly why Intel tolerates AMD, 
> in fact has even quietly helped it out when it looked about to fold a 
> few years back.

Oh, but Microsoft has healthy, friendly and cooperative competition!
Didn't you see how they even settled out of ourt with Sun? So that they
can "compete" with "open" standards... So they aren't a monopoly, right?

And this isn't a matter of monopoly vs competition, it's a matter of
those anti-property lunatics, they wan't to shatter the economy and
drive innovation away!

Besides, EU's very fond of competition, they even said that Microsoft
must license with RAND their protocols...

Now seriously, you haven't learned doublespeak yet?

> However if its core businesses were to fall as they surely will some 
> day, expect the gloves to come off. MS is building for that time.

I think that will happen earlier, under the guise of legitimate self
defense against "pirates" "stealing" "their" "property".

Rui
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