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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: HTML as GNAT source
Date: 1998/02/09
Message-ID: <dewar.887002511@merv>#1/1
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Date: 1998-02-09T00:00:00+00:00
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Robert Leif wrote

<<I agree with everything you wrote except for, "The tools that produce the
input can be either proprietary, public domain (as would probably be case
if I do a Y2K tool), or copylefted." One condition I wrote was that Ada
tools should be available under conditions that permit their use by ALL
compiler vendors. I will not develop software that is potentially is
covered by a copyleft. Firstly, I am a professional inventor. I will NEVER
under any circumstances agree to give up my constitutional right to obtain
a patent on my intellectual property. However, I will agree to join one or
more patent and copyright pools including giving up my right to be a sole
source in exchange for reasonable royalties.
>>

It is fine for people to decide that they personally insist on writing
only proprietary software. People are free to make this choice.

However, the claim thatcomp. there is a constitutional right to obtain a patent
on your intellectual property is a common misconception, but it is just
that, a misconception. The USA is quite different from many other countries,
e.g. the countries of the EEC, in that the constitution does NOT recognize
any moral rights of authors or inventors.

The commerce clause of the constitution *permits* but does not *require*
congress to provide limited copyright and patent grants to authors and
inventors if, and only if, such grants promote the advance of the
"useful arts". In other words, such grants are constitutional only if
they benefit the public.

This often comes as a surprise, and I often find that people just
assume that authors have these rights. Note that the term "intellectual
property" does not appear anywhere in the constitution.

This is not really an Ada related thread, except rather indirectly, namely
it impinges on the issue of whether software patents promote or retard
the development of software. Such patents are constitutional only if
they promote software development, and this point is arguable. Certainly
there is a concern that software patents can affect the ability to produce
freely distributed software. Given the way patents work, the author of
freely distributed software may violate a patent without any way of knowing
they are doing so (between the application and granting of a patent, it
can be kept secret), and then later may owe substantial royalties even
though they never gained any income from the distribution.

Probably it is not appropriate to start a long thread on this on CLA,
since it has been discussed to death elsewhere. However, it seemed
unfortunate to let Robert Leif's clearly incorrect statement stand
uncorrected. For more detail on this and related topics, I suggest
looking through the information provided by the LPF.

Robert Dewar