Re: Seeking IBM partner for contacting IBM regarding publishing of documentation

This discussion highlights the problem with even having any "intellectual property" laws generally, and copyright laws specifically.

Intellectual property lawyer Sephen Kinsella wrote a book on the subject, "Against Intellectual Property". It is very short and very readable. You can't bottle up air and sell it.

The idea arose originally among kings and royalty who required permission to print stuff the ruler found offensive. Whence the term "royalties".  You get an idea when you consider how very arbitrary it all is. Write a second translation a book from its original language, change at least X percent of the wording therein and you have just created a work that counts as "original".

The idea in the Constitution was to award inventors and creators of new things. But today how many creators benefit?

Isaac Newton's works are public domain today. Does anybody think that's a theft from his descendants?

IBM itself makes tens of millions of dollars profit from all kinds of open-source programming, and even some open-source hardware.

Just wanted to share some thoughts relevant to the discussion. Schindler's problem is a case in point.

--Alan


On 4/3/2023 3:45 PM, Götz Hoffart wrote:

On 3 Apr 2023, at 21:32, Patrik Schindler wrote:

It's the Humans with Law Degrees that are the problem. they make (and
break) said rules.

Yes, you've nailed it. And if I could get one of these to hear me out, he can decide if and how to break those ruled in my favor. ;-)

You’d need to climb very high up the ladder within a large corp to find some_one_ with that power. Someone in the middle of the org has to weigh what to use own resources for, and which battles to fight (upstream). As there is little gain for them, the choice may very well be "I won’t touch this" or "not worth arguing". It would be different, if you’d be a section 509 org, or a honorable club (CHM or similar); such things would make it a bit easier to succeed.

Been there, done that (*)

(And I disagree with the "it’s the lawyers fault only!". The problem is IMHO a specific mindset. You’ll find this with lawyers, but also with IT —and other— folks.)

Regards
Götz
(*) I’m neither within IBM, nor a lawyer. But in a S&P500/NASDAQ100 corp.