FEATURE: Patents in software a potential 'minefield': Stallman

["Frederick Noronha" <fred@bytesforall.org>]

Patents in software a potential 'minefield', warns Free Software
founder

By Frederick Noronha

PANAJI (Goa), Nov 6: India should avoid the "minefield" of 
introducing patents in the software world, Free Software Foundation 
head Dr Richard M Stallman warned industry and politicians here, 
asking to avoid such a trap.  

"Software patients is a very critical issue, and I understand the 
Indian parliament is considering whether to do so," Stallman (49) 
said at a dinner meet organised by the Goa Chambers of Commerce and 
Industry during his first-ever three-day visit to this small state.  

The head of an impressive campaign to keep software 'free' and non-
proprietary, which has led to the birth of the alternate GNU/Linux 
operating system today threatening to challenge corporations like 
Microsoft, Dr Stallman warned that patients were not suited for a 
field like software.  

"When writing a (software) program, you typically combine different 
ideas. Anyone trying to develop software -- unless its very small or 
limited in size -- is going to be stepping onto a minefield (in case 
software patents are accepted)," he cautioned.  

Since "many good ideas go into your program", there's no such thing 
as "the" patent, he said Richard Matthew Stallman, who began the Free 
Software Movement in 1984 inspired by the ideals of the American War 
of Independence.  

"This is an issue that is going to affect all software developers. In 
the US, there are already over 100,000 software patents. So, that 
means, there are a lot of things we (as developers) are not allowed 
to do," he argued.  

He called software patents "incredibly dangerous". Right now, the 
European Union was also making a decision over this issue, he noted. 
Besides, he suggested, countries from the West would be better 
equipped to file patents, and also pump in money to fight cases over 
the same.  

Stallman, a strong votary of Free Software -- this refers to the 
freedom offered to the developer and user, not the price -- 
underlined the benefits of such operating systems as against 
proprietorial and closed-source products (where the critical code 
that goes into the program is not publicly available to the buyer).  

Speaking at the meet, Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar suggested 
that higher-secondary students getting state-subsidised computers 
under a 'cyberage' scheme could possibly be given a GNU/Linux-based 
operating system (OS), rather than a proprietorial OS.  

National Institute of Oceanography (Goa) scientist Dr Albert Gouveia 
said his institute had been running an early version of GNU/Linux 
right from 1993.  

Businessmen appreciate the cost-saving aspects of this operating 
system, while programmers say it offers them wide freedom while also 
making computing affordable, a critical factor in a country like 
India.  

"The way I learnt to be a good programmer was when we worked at MIT, 
and had the freedom to (tinker around with the code). I didn't know 
enough (of programming) then. But I could learn because we could work 
on it. Today Free Software gives you that opportunity," said the 
bearded, long-haired, pun-loving genius of a programmer.  

Stallman, among other things, wrote the first extensible Emacs text 
editor there in 1975, for which, in 1991, he received the Grace 
Hooper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery. He is also 
the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation genius grant.  

Speaking earlier, Stallman opined that two countries in the globe -- 
India and Brazil -- have been showing an "increasing awareness" over 
addressing the social aspects of computing. Both countries have been 
working on building affordable computing solutions, and take IT to 
the commonman in a number of ways. (ENDS)