Re: Compcomm: Draft "IUCr Computing Commission's opinion on

["Simon Parsons" <sp01@holyrood.ed.ac.uk>]

Dear Lachlan

I think some clarification of certain points is desirable before this is made 
public.I'm afraid that my first reaction is to disagree with the sentiments 
expressed here, but it may well be the case that my comments are owed to 
a poor understanding what exactly you are against.  

> Draft "IUCr Computing Commission's opinion on Software Patents"
> 
> While it is important to provide legal protection to authors and
> corporations developing scientific software, it is the opinion of the
> IUCr Computing Commission that this protection should rely on existing
> copyright and trademark laws. It is the further opinion of the IUCr
> Computing Commission that software patents are a spurious fad and
> against the spirit of the patent laws. It is common knowledge that
> software patents go against the original spirit and letter of patent
> law; and that many present software patents are either trivial, or
> involve the patenting of prior art, and have only been passed due to
> respective Patent Offices not being competent to analyse them. 

This seems too general and rather too polemical.
Someone can invent an algorithm, just as they can invent a new kind of 
vacuum cleaner or an anticancer drug. Why should this not be subject to 
protection? Clearly, patenting of prior art is not on, but if this happens it is 
because the patenting agencies are not doing their job, not because it is 
fundamentally wrong to issue a patent under any circumstances.
You may like to clarify the precise distinction between a copyright and a 
patent.

> 
> Patents passed on software methods are only effective in discouraging
> and chilling the development of new scientific software. This can
> prevent scientific advances from individuals, academic institutions and
> small companies; as well as quench the spread of crystallographic
> knowledge. 

This point would appear to apply not only software methods, but any 
scientific activity.  

> Software Patents are therefore damaging to the entire
> scientific community. The concluding opinion of the IUCr Computing
> Commission is that there should be strong discouragement with respect to
> Software Patents; and they should be viewed as an ethically illegitimate
> and morally reprehensible practise.
> 

As I said above I think that there may well be instances where someone has 
invented a process with great skill and imagination. In any other discipline 
this could be protected, if the inventor wanted it to be. Why should authors of 
crystallographic software be an exception? There is a school of thought that 
all software should be open source and people should be able to chop it and 
change it as they see fit.  I have a great deal of sympathy with this because 
it obviously facilitates progress.   I would far rather see the IUCr positively 
encourage this kind of activity, rather than issue overwhelmingly negative 
statements such as this one.

Simon



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Simon Parsons
School of Chemistry
The University of Edinburgh
King's Buildings 
West Mains Road
Edinburgh, Scotland
EH9 3JJ
0131 650 5804
Group web site: http://www.crystal.chem.ed.ac.uk
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