Re: [OT] Right to use vs. sue (was: No call for Ada...)

[Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 12:08:24 +0100, "amado.alves"
<amado.alves@netcabo.pt> wrote:

>I like Kazakov's idea of, basically, selling warranty instead of bits.
>However I see this problem: only BIG entities are capable of effectively providing warranty. So the model (if pushed by law) would put small developers out of business.

They will become subcontractors. Nobody can earn money by soldering
DVD players in the garage. Market consolidates this or other way. Once
it happens, big players start to outsource.

>/* However I note that when a big company warrants some system (e.g. a airplane) that contains software, they are of necessity warranting the contained software,
>parts of which might have been done by small companies. */

Exactly.

>And why do you think the copyright system works poorly? Aren't zillions of creators living of them, some quite well?

Only a small minority of them. Actually big recording, movie
companies, publishing houses etc are robbing authors, forcing them to
sell their rights. What is even worse, they decide what will be
published. In fact it is a new kind of censorship, trying to form the
market to get maximal profit. We have to tolerate this only because we
do not know how to do it better.

> Why can't this work for software?

Because, now software development is maturing. Most of software
written requires no creativity at all, but rather engineering. What is
so interesting in MS-Word to deserve copyright protection? The idea of
text processing, or rather just the shape of buttons? The later could
be copyrighted, but not the software product as the whole.

--
Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de