Companies that develop nonfree software and other
things keep lots and lots of trade secrets, and so
that's not really likely to change. In the old
days-even in the 1980s-for the most part programmers
were not aware that there were even software patents
and were paying no attention to them. What happened was
that people published the interesting ideas, and if
they were not in the free software movement, they kept
secret the little details. And now they patent those
broad ideas and keep secret the little details. So as
far as what you're describing, patents really make no
difference to it one way or another."
"But if it doesn't affect their publication," a new
audience member jumps in, his voice trailing off almost
as soon as he starts speaking.
"But it does," Stallman says. "Their publication is
telling you that this is an idea that's off limits to
the rest of the community for 20 years. And what the
hell good is that? Besides, they've written it in such
a hard way to read, both to obfuscate the idea and to
make the patent as broad as possible, that it's
basically useless looking at the published information
to learn anything anyway.
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