Creative Commons - Belgium

[Frederik Questier <frederik AT questier.com>]

Op Monday 05 September 2005 17:20, schreef wim schreurs:
> Article 27.2. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, U.N., 10 December
> 1948
>
> : "Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material
> interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production
> of which he is the author." Is this applicable to software patents?

Software is (for good reasons!) considered similar as literary works or 
writings: it is protected by copyrights.
This prevents others from copying the software, be it in extenso or 
partially, be it in source or compilled.

Patent protection on software is as crazy as patents on texts.
Consider e.g. that somebody could take a patent on stories about a 
passionate murder. Nobody, except the patent holder and the persons that 
buy a license, could write stories about passionate murders.

Patents are only for real inventions, not mathematics, nor software.

If that is changed, things go out of balance, and that may go against the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, U.N., Article 27.1:
"Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the 
community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its 
benefits."

Best Regards

-- 
Free University - Free Software !
Vrije Universiteit - Vrije Software !

"The most fundamental way of helping other people,
is to teach people how to do things better
or how to better their lives.
For people who use computers, this means sharing the recipes
you use on your computer, in other words the programs you run."
                   Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation.
--
Frederik Questier, PhD
Onderwijs Service Centrum
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
http://osc.vub.ac.be
http://questier.com