Richard Stallman: Let’s Limit the Effect of Software Patents
This makes no sense.  Is Stallman so focused on software that he isn't considering the implications of continuing to apply broken software patents to hardware?<p>FPGAs?  Is an algorithm implemented on a FPGA a software or hardware implementation?<p>Sufficiently popular software algorithms like mpeg4 (including avc) are often implemented in ASICs for speed.  Stallman's suggestion does nothing to help in those cases.<p>What if Intel introduces new instructions that assist with some patented algorithm but do not carry out the complete algorithm?  Software completes the algorithm using the chip instruction.  Is that covered under Stallman's software patent immunity proposal?<p>The dichotomy between software implementations and hardware implementations is unhelpful.  If you oppose software patents on principle, whether because you think they're harmful or because you think they're math and are not supposed to be patentable in the first place, why let the camel's nose into the tent by campaigning to allow hardware (ASIC?) implementation patents, but not allowing pure-software implementations?<p>Perhaps this is better framed as an economic argument.  If cost were no object, more algorithms would be implemented in ASICs.  There's a limit to the total chip area you'd want to fit into a computer, but a lot of algorithms could be implemented in a few custom ASICs.  It's likely that some of those algorithms would be covered by patents.  Stallman's proposal seems like discrimination against algorithms that are important enough to make faster execution worth a lot of money.<p>If software patents are not valid, and I don't believe they are valid, then allowing them to apply to hardware implementations is just applying a band-aid and punting on the real issue.  Stallman's proposal may be pragmatic, in that it reduces risk to most start-ups and other entities worried about violating patents in software, but it sustains the confusion about what software patents are and whether they can be valid.  I think there's more at stake than the money at issue in patent lawsuits every year.  I think broad appreciation of the value of open culture, and recognition that algorithms should be part of that, is worth more than any extra value companies might be able to extract from hardware implementations of patented algorithms due to artificial monopolies created by patent protection.