Re: Enjoy solving problems?

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Re: Enjoy solving problems?

On Tue, 23 Jun 1998 08:17:08 +0100, Stuart Dawson
<sd@dawson-eng.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>In article <358e3396.871714@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Andrew Lewis
><floodle@usa.net> writes
>>Unless you come up  with something incredibly
>>unique, no one  in their right mind would pay for it,
>
>That's all _you_ know.
>
>>I am opposed to the entire concept of intellectual property.
>
>Ah, a principled socialist. Or a loser with just enough brainpower to
>come up with a self-justifying rationalisation for stealing the product
>of other peoples' work and investment.
>
>I make a coffee-table. It's mine. You steal it. You're a thief.
>I write a program. It's mine. You steal it. You're a thief.
>
>What part of that do you have trouble with?
>
>--
        A coffee table is a tangible product.  It requires a certain
amount of labor to produce, and a certain amount of labor is required
on the part of the producer to create  it (tangible, physical labor).

        A TI-Basic program can be produced for free, as the
programming language was already created and freely distributed by
others, and any given programming technique was probably also thought
of by someone else.  It requires no investment, aside from owning a
calculator  (but a calculator is also a physical thing).
        So lets say you write a math program in TI-Basic.  First of
all, it costs you nothing, since you  already own the calculator, and
the computer, and the link cable.  Secondly, you probably just took
whatever formulas it  solves directly from a math text.  What have you
done, except taken some public domain formulas and code them into a
public domain language?  If we follow your archaic property-based
logic, TI and the estate of the all the mathematicians who developed
the formulas should split up all money you make from  your program.

        See what I'm getting at?  If we attached a monetary value to
every idea developed,  societal progress would grind to a halt.  The
sharing of ideas, free of charge, between people, has made possible
every major development of any kind.  Do you think the inventor of the
wheel should receive royalties for every car made?  Do you think any
one person really invented the wheel, instead of it being the result
of a succession of developments, made by many different people?  Crude
opportunism may make money, and frankly anybody dumb enough  to buy
whatever you write probably deserves to lose their money, but a
program is just an idea, and ideas are never the property of one
person.

-Andy
(btw, the text of this message is public domain, and may be altered,
copied and redistributed in any way you choose without fear of
prosecution)
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