For instance, using a particular sequence of notes as a motif could be patented, or a chord progression could be patented, or a rhythmic pattern could be patented, or using certain instruments by themselves could be patented, or a format of repetitions in a movement could be patented. Any sort of musical idea that could be described in words would have been patentable.
Now imagine that it’s 1800 and you’re Beethoven, and you want to write a symphony. You’re going to find it’s much harder to write a symphony you don’t get sued for than to write one that sounds good, because you have to thread your way around all the patents that exist. If you complained about this, the patent holders would say, “Oh, Beethoven, you’re just jealous because we had these ideas first. Why don’t you go and think of some ideas of your own?”
Now Beethoven had ideas of his own. The reason he’s considered a great composer is because of all of the new ideas that he had, and he actually used. And he knew how to use them in such a way that they would work, which was to combine them with lots of well-known ideas. He could put a few new ideas into a composition together with a lot of old and uncontroversial ideas. And the result was a piece that was controversial, but not so much so that people couldn’t get used to it.
To us, Beethoven’s music doesn’t sound controversial; I’m told it was, when it was new. But because he combined his new ideas with a lot of known ideas, he was able to give people a chance to stretch a certain amount. And they could, which is why to us those ideas sound just fine. But nobody, not even a Beethoven, is such a genius that he could reinvent music from zero, not using any of the well-known ideas, and make something that people would want to listen to. And nobody is such a genius he could reinvent computing from zero, not using any of the well-known ideas, and make something that people want to use.
When the technological context changes so frequently, you end up with a situation where what was done 20 years ago is totally inadequate. Twenty years ago there was no World Wide Web. So, sure, people did a lot of things with computers back then, but what they want to do today are things that work with the World Wide Web. And you can’t do that using only the ideas that were known 20 years ago. And I presume that the technological context will continue to change, creating fresh opportunities for somebody to get patents that give the shaft to the whole field.
Big companies can even do this themselves. For instance, a few years ago Microsoft decided to make a phony open standard for documents and to get it approved as a standard by corrupting the International Standards Organization, which they did. But they designed it using something that Microsoft had patented. Microsoft is big enough that it can start with a patent, design a format or protocol to use that patented idea (whether it’s helpful or not), in such a way that there’s no way to be compatible unless you use that same idea too. And then Microsoft can make that a de facto standard with or without help from corrupted standards bodies. Just by its weight it can push people into using that format, and that basically means that they get a stranglehold over the whole world. So we need to show the politicians what’s really going on here. We need to show them why this is bad.
Now I’ve heard it said that the reason New Zealand is considering software patents is that one large company wants to be given some monopolies. To restrict everyone in the country so that one company will make more money is the absolute opposite of statesmanship.
Copyright c 2009 Richard Stallman
This transcript was originally published on http://gnu.org, in 2009. This version is part of Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman, 2nd ed. (Boston: GNU Press, 2010).
This chapter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California 94105, USA.
Chapter 26.
Microsoft’s New Monopoly
This article was written in July 2005. Microsoft adopted a different policy in 2006, so the specific policies described below and the specific criticisms of them are only of historical significance. The overall problem remains, however: Microsoft’s cunningly worded new policy (see http://grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections#Patent_rights_to_implement_the_ Ecma_376_specification_have_not_been_granted) does not give anyone clear permission to implement OOXML.
European legislators who endorse software patents frequently claim that those wouldn’t affect free software (or “open source”). Microsoft’s lawyers are determined to prove they are mistaken.
Leaked internal documents in 1998 said that Microsoft considered the free software GNU/Linux operating system (referred to therein as “Linux”) as the principal competitor to Windows, and spoke of using patents and secret file formats to hold us back.
Because Microsoft has so much market power, it can often impose new standards at will. It need only patent some minor idea, design a file format, programming language, or communication protocol based on it, and then pressure users to adopt it. Then we in the free software community will be forbidden to provide software that does what these users want; they will be locked in to Microsoft, and we will be locked out from serving them.
Previously Microsoft tried to get its patented scheme for spam blocking adopted as an Internet standard, so as to exclude free software from handling email. The standards committee in charge rejected the proposal, but Microsoft said it would try to convince large ISPs to use the scheme anyway.
Now Microsoft is planning to try something similar for Word files.
Several years ago, Microsoft abandoned its documented format for saving documents, and switched to a new format which was secret. However, the developers of free software word processors such as AbiWord and OpenOffice.org experimented assiduously for years to figure out the format, and now those programs can read most Word files. But Microsoft isn’t licked yet.
The next version of Microsoft Word will use formats that involve a technique that Microsoft claims to hold a patent on. Microsoft offers a royalty-free patent license for certain limited purposes, but it is so limited that it does not allow free software. You can see the license here: http://microsoft.com/whdc/xps/xpspatentlic.mspx.
Free software is defined as software that respects four fundamental freedoms: (0) freedom to run the software as you wish, (1) freedom to study the source code and modify it to do what you wish, (2) freedom to make and redistribute copies, and (3) freedom to publish modified versions. Only programmers can directly exercise freedoms 1 and 3, but all users can exercise freedoms 0 and 2, and all users benefit from the modifications that programmers write and publish.
Distributing an application under Microsoft’s patent license imposes license terms that prohibit most possible modifications of the software. Lacking freedom 3, the freedom to publish modified versions, it would not be free software. (I think it could not be “open source” software either, since that definition is similar; but it is not identical, and I cannot speak for the advocates of open source.)