Richard Stallman

Stallman in the bright red t-shirt by the podium.

The man was in the city to give a speech on "The dangers of Software Patents" at the CLT, IIT Chennai. Having got special permission from my boss and in the company of a colleague arrived at around 2.30pm to get a seat. The auditorium was fully crammed when Richard Stallman walked in late and just as you expected him to be, in jeans, red t-shirt with a backpack on. Before anybody could give the introductory speech or start with the formalities he took the podium and went straight to the topic at hand.

He started by explaining the differences between a patent, trademark, copyright and quote Intellectual Property unquote (hey!, thats how he mentioned it every time he had to use the term...). Having laid the foundation he moved on to the actual dangers of software patenting. According to him software does not lend itself to patenting as well as it does for other industries because all software is simply a representation of abstract/mathematical ideas. Each software does not have a single idea but has thousands/millions of ideas (some of them are not considered ideas anymore because they've become structured like the if-else, while, for loop etc.), and ideas can be patented. And because software consists of abstract/mathematical ideas they can be grouped as using a different set of ideas by different people. Added to this is the convoluted legal language in which it is all written. So it is a nearly impossible thing to write software which does not have a single patented idea in it which can only happen if you have a totally new idea which is extremely rare. Most ideas are enhancements of existing ideas(like we have bubble sort, heap sort, quick sort,...if one was enough why the other?) even then that single idea cannot make a complete software it needs other ideas for other things it must do to appeal to a customer. So, the task of tracking down all the patent infringes of a particular software is massively time consuming and useless to be bothered about by a programmer. Infact, the penalty for infringing a patent without prior knowledge is lesser so its more feasible that way ;).

He decried the moral ideal behind software patents is to protect the small entrepreneur from being forced out of business by a big company because he has a patent on his software that cannot be violated by the larger company. What happens infact is that the big company has numerous other patents which cover parts of the software developed by the entrepreneur that he is forced to cross licence.

Another concern about software patents is that the party holding the patent may not issue a license thus effectively preventing the use of an idea (which would be called restrictive trade practices otherwise if not for patents). An interesting anecdote Richard Stallman shared was about a Paul Heckle. Another interesting tidbit was from IBM about the benefits of software patents for IBM from them


1. The license fees

2. The litigation and payments avoided by cross-licensing (which is a better benefit than the first one)

On the whole the speech was a blast !!

I'm back !!

Its been a long time since I found time to update this blog. Had lots of interesting stuff happening meanwhile. But, first things first :).

About the movies...
The Wind Game - is about the letters to an old writer from his young friend in search of his father. Most of it was really abstract and I had a difficult time figuring out whether I really understood anything at all. The scence kept changing from an elusive white horse among ruins, to an equally elusive old loremaster among the same ruins, to a pretty lady seated among cool fountains, to the main protagonist despairing
over the parched desert surface, clutching about six small hollow bamboo sticks. When the movie got over I really had no idea if he found anything about his father. I'm still confused if I'm dumb or it was just meant to be that way.

Clear Skies After Rain - is a story of a beautiful girl who likes to sing and likes to believe she is a good singer. How she is stuck with a rude, arrogant husband who thinks he is Sylvester Stallone and a slick agent type who is trying to seduce her.

Ararath - is actually the name of a mountain in Armenia. Its shot using a really interesting concept of a movie inside a movie. In the movie "we" are watching a movie is being shot so, whenever there is a flashback to the original event the movie inside the movie kicks in. And when its done the the film smoothly transitions to the actual time (with respect to the movie that is...). The story is really complicated and
encompasses both the timezones. The central character of the movie is Arshile Gorky who is a painter famous painter. Now he has only a token presence physically in the movie but everything in the movie is about him and a self-portrait of him with his mother which is actually painted out of a photograph. Gorky was a kid when the massacre of the Armenians happened and later he comes to Canada marries, has a daughter, marries again to a writer who has a son from a previous marriage(to an Armenian revolutionary who blew up someone). The step brother and siter share a incestous relationship. The daughter accuses the writer wife of murdering her father but the writer claims he commited suicide...There are several interconnections for example the painting hangs in a museum where the disgruntled daughter tries to wreck it, the security guard's gay partner stars in the lead role of the movie inside the movie and his father is a customs officer who (disapproves the marriage...) and on his last day of duty catches the son of the writer inadvertently smuggling drugs into the country but eventually lets him go. I know most of the above does not make too much sense :) but the movie was a great watch.

Dance of the Wind - is a sad tale of a movie director who goes location scouting somewhere in tunisia for a movie he is going to shoot which is about a guy getting lost in the desert and dying...and the poor guy himself gets lost in the desert and dies(just like the movie he was going to shoot!! is it coincidence or what?).

Mademoiselle - is about a little excitement in the life of a happily married mother of two sales executive, who is out of town for a meeting and misses her train. She hitches a ride with the same entertainment troupe that entertained them the previous evening. This entertainment troupe consists of a married couple and a single guy. They call themselves the "Impromptu Company" and have no script ready for anything but pick each others cues excellently to astonish and entertain the audience. The sales executive does a little bit of impromptu herself and falls for the single guy and happily returns home to her family. (Realy cute
story...)