[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Malkuth

Here you go... all the parts addressing your question...

First here by historical example...

That's not an example. It's you making a bald claim about things being better in some unspecified past.

Then here with a modern one...

That's just an example of you liking cheap music. Good for you, but it doesn't indicate that the death of copyright isn't the death of big budget productions, or that we'll all be just as glad to be stuck watching Youtube videos of cats instead of going to watch movies like Avengers on the big screen.

Again here in principle...

You'd have to be more precise. Who do you mean when you say "creator/developer"? How would you enforce that only they would profit?

Also, what do you mean by "tiny fraction"? Because a quick Google search gives Microsoft's budget as 8 to 10 billion dollars, and their legal one as 10 times less.

Another alternative

Yeah, I answered that one. Don't feel like repeating it.

And the context for the argument...

Which doesn't tell us that, should patents disappear, those same resources will go to R&D.

More modern example of pattern infrigment...

You seem to think that spending on marketing rather than on R&D is a good thing. I disagree.

More examples...

And yet, all the modern drugs? The end results of hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. Each. That's without counting the failed projects, of which there are many for every success.

And it's not (solely, or even mainly) because of patents. It's a side effects of the systems we've put into place to make sure we're not being sold snake oil.

It's nice that doctors still see what they do as a public service. It's nice that governments fund a lot of research. I'm not sure what to think about the fact that there's never enough top rated surgeons for everyone.

But you can't expect all those to hold true for consumer electronics.

Again in summarizing in principle and answering for the tenth time...

Please note that I didn't say it'd disappear entirely. But yeah, if there's no money to be made in R&D, then the private investment will mostly dry up. And nothing in history's telling me otherwise.

Yet another working example...

Drawn from software. Cheap to research, and most of the money comes from support. So?

[quote]

Last post only addressed the question...

The problem is that you haven't shown how doing away with patents will bring those resources to the scientist.

So wasting the money in the legal system is productive?

To borrow Vetinari's dairy farming metaphor, if you have an idea to get milk without having to deal with moo, feel free to share it. (I was going to say "patent it", but, well...)

Catalonia pre-junta. But I am not saying that everything should be free, this will require a world of selfless humans, not the current with a majority made of selfish apes. Sarcasm aside, some things should not become commercial comodities, like ideas, air, ownership of our bodies, etc.

And I'm saying that if the output (the ideas) has to be free, then so does the input (the material, the labor). And if the people have to work for nothing, then they'd better not have bills to pay.

It's not an absolute rule, obviously. But the exceptions aren't enough to build a functioning society.

That would be the mouse, not the touchscreen, hand gestures, and some other minor patents I was talking about.

I thought you were talking about windows?

I can see how effective it is currently as well as historically.

The situation may not be ideal, but what history are you even talking about? 50 years ago, we had no internet. 100 years ago, we had no computer. Look at us now.

In contrast, how much time elapsed between the first glass lenses and the first telescope?

I'm not saying that patents would have accelerated the process. I am, however, wondering about that golden technological age of yours.

On the other hand, I don't want to imagine a world where everything material and not has degraded to a mass produced product by a company or state... oh! wait 1984 described such a world

Which is why we have licensing - balancing the need for those who make a big investment to make a return on said investment, against the potential for further innovation to come cheaply, from other maybe less well endowed sources. It's not perfect, but it's better than having every technological advance treated like KFC's 11 herbs and spices mix.

I'll also remark that your ideals are all very well, but regardless of patent laws, some things take millions or billions before you have a sellable product. And that you still haven't addressed that point.

Actual games are copyrighted as all get out. Thousands of man hours are poured into them, and the companies making them expect a return - they have bills to pay. So, again, compare actual copyrighted games made for Windows and the actual free games we have for Linux. Instead of telling me about the free engine they both use.

Oh, sure, you could claim you've found some indy gem whose plot and gameplay outshine everything. But be serious: there's a reason game companies survive, and we're not all playing some free version of sudoku.

Eh? OpenGL, PostgresSQL, are catching up? LMAO, they are the most complete and efficient choices

Yeah, I was talking about office suites.

Office suites on the other hand are the less technical products, and advertisement of useless features is their selling point...

Useless to you and me, sure. That's not how those who use the damn things a lot are saying.

This model is adapted by more and more vendors, because they already have problems competing with free software (Oracle, SAP).

Those are software. When I said "everything", I meant everything that's used to make money. Small material goods, for example. You can't give cars away and then ask that people pay through the nose to have them repaired - they'll just get new free cars. (I guess some kind of deal like where a gas seller helps you buy a car in exchange for you buying a guaranteed amount of gas every months for years would theoretically be possible, though.)

Why, they will magically disappear

They'll be redirected to things that actually bring a return.