# LANGUAGE translation of https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-patents.html # Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc. # This file is distributed under the same license as the original article. # FIRST AUTHOR , YEAR. # #, fuzzy msgid "" msgstr "" "Project-Id-Version: rms-patents.html\n" "POT-Creation-Date: 2022-10-20 10:26+0000\n" "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n" "Last-Translator: FULL NAME \n" "Language-Team: LANGUAGE \n" "Language: \n" "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=CHARSET\n" "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n" #. type: Content of: msgid "" "Solutions to the Software Patent Problem - GNU Project - Free Software " "Foundation" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><h2> msgid "Solutions to the Software Patent Problem" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><address> msgid "by Richard Stallman" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><div><p> msgid "" "Speech given at the Locatelli Center, Santa Clara University, in November " "2012  (<a " "href=\"//audio-video.gnu.org/video/keynote-what-is-the-problem.webm\">video</a>, " " <a " "href=\"/audio-video/philosophy-recordings.html#rms-201211160\">metadata</a>)" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "<b>Andrew Chen:</b> Thank you, Eric." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "My name is Andrew Chen. I teach patent law at the University of North " "Carolina, and I had a previous life as a Computer Science professor." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "I have the easiest job today, which is introducing two men who need no " "introduction. Richard Stallman, we know, is the founder of the free " "software movement, co-founder of the League for Programming Freedom, lead " "software architect for the GNU Project and author of Emacs, which he's " "described as a text editor and also a way of life. Something that I can " "agree with, having written my doctoral dissertation using his program." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Dr Stallman has decided not to participate in the live streaming facility " "for today. He explains that use of the streaming online would require use " "of the Microsoft Silverlight plugin, which would pressure people to use " "proprietary software. Dr Stallman considers it wrong to pressure people to " "do that. He would like you to know that he plans to make a recording of his " "presentation available at a later time in either the Ogg Theora or WebM " "formats." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "Dr Stallman." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "<i>[applause]</i>" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>Richard Stallman:</b> Can the tech people please confirm that the " "streaming is off?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "OK, I think that's confirmation." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, why are software patents bad? Or, “computational idea " "patents” as I think we should really call them, because each one is a " "monopoly on a computational idea. Most people, when you say “software " "patents,” they think it's a question of patenting a specific program. " "I'm sure all of you know that that's not what those patents do, but most " "people don't know that, so, to try to avoid misleading people, I call them " "“computational idea patents.”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, anyway, the reason these are bad is that they deny people the freedom to " "use their computers as they wish and do their computing as they wish, " "freedom that everyone must have. These patents put all software developers " "in danger, and their users as well. A danger that there is no reason we " "should stand for. So: we should protect software from patents. Software " "needs patent protection: protection from patents." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "But most people don't know enough about what patents do to appreciate why " "patents that can restrict software are so harmful. Most people think that " "patents are like copyrights, which is not true at all. The sum total of " "what they have in common is one sentence in the Constitution, and that " "similarity is so little and abstract it has nothing to do with the practical " "effects." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, the last thing we should ever do is use the term “intellectual " "property” that confuses not just these two laws, but a bunch of other " "unrelated, disparate laws, that don't even share one sentence in the " "Constitution with those two. So that term spreads confusion whenever it's " "used and about eight years ago I decided I should never use it and I have " "never used it since then. It's surprisingly easy to avoid, because in " "general there's no reason whatsoever to use it except that it's chic. And " "once you learn to resist that, it's as easy as pie, just talk about one law, " "and then you call that law by its name, and you're making a coherent, clear " "statement." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, I have to explain to people what patents do, and show them that it's not " "at all like what copyrights do. An analogy is a good way to do this. What " "can you say about programs? Well, they're large works, full of details that " "all have to work together to get the desired result. Well, what else is " "there like that? A novel, or a symphony." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, imagine if the governments of Europe in the 1700s had had the cockeyed " "idea of promoting the progress of symphonic music with a system of " "“musical idea patents.” So, any musical idea statable in words " "could have been patented. A melodic motif could have been patented, or a " "series of chords, or a rhythmic pattern, or a pattern of repetitions in a " "movement, or the use of certain instruments while the rest of the orchestra " "is silent and a bunch of other musical ideas that I can't think of, but " "maybe a composer would." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, now imagine it's 1800 and you're Beethoven and you want to write a " "symphony. You're going to find that it's harder to write a symphony that " "you don't get sued for than to write a good symphony. Now, you'd probably " "have complained, and the patent holders would have said “Oh, " "Beethoven, you're just jealous because we had these ideas before you. Why " "don't you go think of some ideas of your own?”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Of course, Beethoven is considered a great composer because he had lots of " "new ideas, and not only that, he knew how to use them effectively. And that " "is: combined with lots of familiar ideas, so that his pieces were merely " "shocking for a while, but people could get used to them. They were not so " "alien and incomprehensible that they got rejected. They shocked people for " "a while, people got used to them, and now we don't see what's shocking any " "more, because we're used to those ideas. Well, that's the proof that he " "used those ideas well." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, the idea that anyone could, or should have to, reinvent music from zero, " "is absurd. Not even a Beethoven could do that, and it would be silly to ask " "someone to try. It's the same with computing. Just as a symphony " "implements many musical ideas together, but the hard part is not picking a " "bunch of ideas. The hard part is implementing them together with notes. " "It's the same with software. A large program will implement thousands of " "ideas together. But the hard part is not picking some ideas. It's easy to " "pick some ideas. What's hard is to implement them all together and make it " "work well." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So “computational idea patents” obstruct the hard and big job by " "promoting resources that we get plenty of anyways. So it's a misconceived " "system. Designed to give us help we don't want at the cost of tremendous " "problems." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So what we need is to get rid of the problem. What is the problem? The " "problem is: software developers and their users are threatened by patents. " "They are in danger. How can you prevent that? Well, one way is: don't issue " "patents that could affect software. That solution works if you apply it " "from the beginning. If a country never issues such patents, then its patent " "system doesn't attack software. OK, it's a good solution. But it's not " "applicable if a country has already issued hundreds of thousands of software " "patents." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now, I've proposed that constitutions should explicitly say that patent " "privileges can be reduced just as they can be increased. That they are not " "in any sense somebody's property; they are privileges given out by the " "government which can be changed at will. After all, if you allow the " "government by legislation to increase them, it's absurd to make this a " "one-way ratchet. But that's not in the US Constitution." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, what can we do? Well, we can ask courts to rule that all those patents " "that restrict software were invalid from the beginning and always have been " "invalid, and that gets rid of them all. However, that's not something that " "people can lobby for. It's not something we can say to officials, “do " "this because we want you to.”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, if we're going to look for a solution that we can get implemented, what " "is there? Well, the only way I can see is to legislate that software is a " "safe harbor. If it's software, then you're safe. Circuits to do the same " "computation would be covered by a patent, but if it's software, then you're " "safe. But what does that mean? What does it mean for something to be " "software? Well, it runs on a general purpose, universal machine. So first " "you make a universal machine and then you put in the program to say what it " "should do. Well, if the machine's only function is to be universal, then " "the program is all that implements any specific, patented idea." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, that's the case I want to get at, and I'm trying to separate it from a " "case like that in <cite>Diamond v. Diehr</cite> where there was a patent for " "a system, a method of curing rubber. The implementation involved a " "computer, but it also involved special purpose hardware, not a general " "purpose universal machine, and that special purpose hardware was crucial to " "carrying out the patented technique." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "It wasn't actually a software technique. And, actually, I read an article " "by Pamela Samuelson arguing that the CAFC twisted that decision and " "basically got the quantifiers in the wrong order. That the Supreme Court " "said, “the fact that there's a computer in there somewhere doesn't " "automatically make it non-patentable,” and the CAFC twisted that into " "“the computer makes it patentable.”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Anyway, we might have some hope with the courts, but I'm proposing a method " "that will separate the cases that we must protect from non-computational " "idea patents that affect systems that might be implemented with a computer " "in there somewhere. The precise words to use? Well, the best I could come " "up with was: “software running on generally used computing " "hardware.” We certainly want things like smartphones to be covered; we " "don't want it to exclude anything that has any kind of special-purpose " "hardware in there." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The portable phone obviously has specialised hardware to talk to the phone " "network, but that shouldn't automatically mean that if it's running on a " "portable phone, it's vulnerable to patents. Because that is a general " "purpose computer and people use it for all sorts of things. But my words, " "“generally used computing hardware,” they may not be the best " "possible words. This is a subject that I think calls for study, because " "we've got to look at each possible wording that might be used and see which " "cases would be protected from patents and which would be exposed to come up " "with the right method." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now, every time I suggest a method to solve this problem, the first thing " "people try to look for is how to half solve it instead. The idea of really " "solving the problem shocks people because it strikes them as radical. They " "think “I can't advocate something so radical as to really solve this " "whole problem. I've got to look for some partial solution that will only " "protect some software developers.”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Well, that's a mistake. It's a mistake a) because it wouldn't do the whole " "job, but b) because it would be harder to get it passed. There are lots of " "software developers and they are all threatened and if we propose to protect " "them all, they will all have a reason to support it. But if we propose to " "only protect some of them, the rest will say “well, this doesn't do me " "any good, why should I care?”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, let's propose a real solution. And, besides, partial solutions tend to " "be vulnerable to the problem that Boldrin and Levine have written about very " "effectively, that it's easy for the pressures for patents to stretch the " "boundaries if you give them any kind of boundary that they can stretch. And " "this, by the way, is another advantage of applying a change to suing people, " "rather than to what's patentable. Because there, the criteria are just " "“what kind of situation is this?”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "It's harder to stretch those, and if they tried, it would always be in a " "case against somebody who's going to be fighting not to stretch it. So it's " "less vulnerable to being distorted from an intended restriction of substance " "into an actual requirement of form of patent applications, which tends to " "happen to any kind of requirement about what patent applications have to " "look like." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "So, there I go." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "<b>Andrew Chen:</b> Thank you, Dr Stallman." msgstr "" #. TRANSLATORS: Use space (SPC) as msgstr if you don't have notes. #. type: Content of: <div> msgid "*GNUN-SLOT: TRANSLATOR'S NOTES*" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><div><p> msgid "" "Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to <a " "href=\"mailto:gnu@gnu.org\"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. There are also <a " "href=\"/contact/\">other ways to contact</a> the FSF. Broken links and " "other corrections or suggestions can be sent to <a " "href=\"mailto:webmasters@gnu.org\"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>." msgstr "" #. TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, #. replace it with the translation of these two: # #. We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality #. translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection. #. Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard #. to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org"> # #. <web-translators@gnu.org></a>.</p> # #. <p>For information on coordinating and contributing translations of #. our web pages, see <a #. href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations #. README</a>. #. type: Content of: <div><div><p> msgid "" "Please see the <a " "href=\"/server/standards/README.translations.html\">Translations README</a> " "for information on coordinating and contributing translations of this " "article." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "Copyright © 2016, 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "This page is licensed under a <a rel=\"license\" " "href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons " "Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>." msgstr "" #. TRANSLATORS: Use space (SPC) as msgstr if you don't want credits. #. type: Content of: <div><div> msgid "*GNUN-SLOT: TRANSLATOR'S CREDITS*" msgstr "" #. timestamp start #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "Updated:" msgstr ""