[openip] Re: "rights" and "freedoms"

[Robert M. Muench]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ross N. Williams [mailto:ross at rocksoft.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 2:27 AM
> To: Doug Hudson; robert.muench at robertmuench.de;
openip at egroups.com
> Cc: rms at gnu.org; license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: [openip] Re: "rights" and "freedoms"

> Perhaps one service that patentbusters.org could provide is to
> publicise this concept (so that companies understand it) and
act
> as a synchronization center for companies that are under threat
> to find companies that are likely to be next in line and
convince
> them to contribute a small amount to breaking the patent. In
short,
> the organization of defense consortiums.

Hi Ross, looks like you have several business concepts for this
patentbuster thing :-). First I have to say that I'm not against
making a 'business' out of such a thing (meaning that people who
contribute gain something) as the service is likely to be on the
good-side. Providing a 'prior-art-research-service' is a very
good idea (much better than your first approach ;-)) and I have
the feeling this thing could sky-rock.

> The key question you have to answer about patent busting is
> "where is the motive force coming from". If your answer is
> "from the hackers" then you have to answer the question of
> why intelligent hackers would rather spend time at
patentbusters.org
> reading about "CD-ROM rotation means with multimedia
enhancement"
> (one of 25,000) than writing the great American app. Unless the
> site starts gaining some kind of numerical superiority in rate
> of processing (which would be inspiring) everyone's just going
to
> go back to coding.

Correct, and the best motivation for most people are some $ and I
don't have a moral problem with this as the service would act as
a place where threatened companies hire some mercenaries. I
really like the idea.

Robert M. Muench, Karlsruhe, Germany
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