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The Virtues of Software Ownership
David H. Carey
1. This is the approach which Johnson emphasizes in her address. The League for Programming Freedom’s section on the purpose of copyright (in “Against User Interface Copyright”) also reflects this approach and traces it to the U.S. Constitution. In that paper, the ten reasons against copyrights for user interfaces are predominantly consequentialist, as is the discussion of patents (e.g., the section called “The Fundamental Question.”)
2. This is the approach of what Johnson calls “Lockean labor theory.”
3. The League for Programming Freedom’s paper “Against Software Patents” (below) has persuaded me that many software patents ought not to have been granted and therefore should be invalidated, but I see no reason in principle why all algorithms should be excluded from patent protection; it may make sense to patent some algorithms or programs. The League for Programming Freedom partially agrees; they say, “we do not claim that every single software patent is necessarily harmful. Careful study might show that under certain specific and narrow conditions (necessarily excluding the vast majority of cases) it is beneficial to grant software patents.” Yet they think that in general software patents have been so harmful that “the right thing to do now is to eliminate all software patents as soon as possible, before more damage is done. The careful study can come afterward.”
4. Again, see the League for Programming Freedom’s section (below)on the purpose of copyright.
5. Called “the last of the hackers” by Steven Levy (Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1984), “Epilogue”), he opposes software ownership on principle and has been working for years to develop a complete, top-quality software library known as “GNU” (a recursive acronym for “GNU’s Not UNIX”) and make it available to the world free of charge. Recently, The Wall Street Journal (in a special report on technology, May 20, 1991, pp. R23 – 24) described how his efforts were dealt a “major blow” earlier this year by AT&T – I take it, over patent number 4,555,775, “covering the use of ‘backing store’ in a window system that lets multiple programs have windows.” (I’m referring here to the account in “Against Software Patents” – although the paper modestly declines to mention Stallman by name but refers instead to “computer companies distributing the free X Window System” and MIT.
6. Perhaps the most successful attempt, and certainly the most famous, to parallel the virtues of a system with the virtues of individual persons is Plato’s Republic. The concept of virtue that unfolds in that work significantly influences the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition in which I situate my argument here.
7. Politics, 1263a, 35ff.
8. Ibid.
9. “Utrum liceat alicui rem aliquam quasi propriam possidere.” Summa Theologiae, II – II, Q. 66, A.2.
10. The Wealth of Nations (New York: The Modern Library, 1937), p. 423.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (Ottawa: Instituti Studiorum Medievalium Ottaviensis, 1941 – 45).
Aristotle, Aristotelis Opera, Academia Regia Borussica edition (Berlin: G. Reimerum, 1831 – 70).
Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1984).
Plato, Platonis Opera, Ioannes Burnet, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905 – 1913).
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York: The Modern Library, 1937).
The Wall Street Journal (a special report on technology, May 20, 1991).
Go to: A Plea for Casual Copying – Nissenbaum
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