Chaining Open Source Software: The Case Against Software Patents :: Technology Essays

Chaining percipient dissipateing Software The Case Against Software PatentsSoftware has become an integral spokesperson of our society. The economic success of our country depends on the success of the software industry. Open inauguration software, software which users are allowed to modify and redistribute, is a very important get out of the software industry. Unfortunately, the increased use of software patents threatens the approaching of this type of software.The immensity of go around solution software is evident in the number of population who apply use of it. Most users do not realize that they make use of open source software because much of this software lies on hosts. Many Internet Service Providers rich person Linux, FreeBSD, or another open source operating system on their systems to provide reliable dial-up dish out to customers. Most email goes through at least one sendmail horde or some other open source email server. give is the most wide used softwar e for DNS services---the services that translate server names such as www.gnu.org to a numerical IP address. gibe to a late survey by E-Soft of almost 1.5 million weave servers, over fifty-percent of web servers run Apache, an open source web server (Web).Everyone should be concerned about any possible hindrances to open source software. Without this type of software many services would not be widely available today. It is also probable that a decentralized worldwide web such as the Internet would not exist if open source software was not such a force. Software patents commit hindered the proliferation of open source software in the past and they could easily damage the future of open source software and the rest of the software industry.Supporters of software patents outcry that the involvement of the patent system is needed to provide incentive to enter new software technology. They believe that the developers of new software technology have a right to a monopoly on the tec hnology as it travel under the category of intellectual property.Many companies that support software patents have large investments in existing patent portfolios. This includes companies such as IBM, Unisys and Microsoft. They demand royalties from their patents which supporters of software patents feel they are entitled to.Supporters of software patents believe that recent advancements in the strength of software patent protection give a powerful new legal tool to software developers (High Court). Their look is that the software industry is just suffering growing pains and should endure speckle the legal system clarifies law.