Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: Re: Software Engineering, Dijkstra, and Hippocrates: ]
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 11:22:35 -0400
Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 09:48:43 -0400 To: farber () cis upenn edu, ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com From: Brad Cox <bcox () virtualschool edu> Subject: Re: IP: Re: Software Engineering, Dijkstra, and Hippocrates: ]
Copyright and other forms of intellectual property were not created inorder to benefit publishing companies. The points you raised apply to the current practice of protecting intellectual property via copyright laws, courts and lawyers as distinct from via technology, which is what http://virtualschool.edu/mybank is about. Protection via lawyers means that each and every transaction is risky, problematic, and costly, but most of all that the protection is only available to those with large legal staffs. Protecting via technology extends the protection to both large players and ordinary folk. Joe Sixkpack can publish digital property by combining his own content with other objects purchased from others, with the ensemble protected via technology instead of copyright law, courts and lawyers. This could support the kind of market forces that underlie mature manufacturing domains. Leaving it up to altruism and reputation economies will keep us reinventing the wheel. What is the alternative to reinventing the wheel if nobody can sell wheels?
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- IP: Re: Software Engineering, Dijkstra, and Hippocrates: ] David Farber (May 27)
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- IP: Re: Software Engineering, Dijkstra, and Hippocrates: ] David Farber (May 27)