2012 Olympics Win Gold Medal for Liberticide

I always hated the Olympics as a vulgar, corrupt and expensive display of corrosive, narrow-minded nationalism. Later, I came to realise that it is also a splendid example of all that is wrong with intellectual monopolies, as the IOC tries to claims "rights" over everyday word combinations. Now I realise that it links up neatly with all kinds of issues relating to corporate greed and the police state:

Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters, and will be able to stop people carrying non-sponsor items to sporting events.

"I think there will be lots of people doing things completely innocently who are going to be caught by this, and some people will be prosecuted, while others will be so angry about it that they will start complaining about civil liberties issues," Chadwick said.

"I think what it will potentially do is to prompt a debate about the commercial nature of the Games. Do big sponsors have too much influence over the Games?"

Surely not.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

There's Nothing New Under the Sun

One of the many sad aspects of Sun's disappearance into the maw of Oracle is that many will see this as “proof” that its strategy of building on open source was a failure. But as Simon Phipps, Sun's former Chief Open Source Officer, rightly says in his valedictory blog post:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Source Saves the Day (and Lots of Dosh)

It seems every day we hear about hideous cost overruns on public sector projects in the UK. What makes it even more frustrating is that open source, a real no-brainer for many applications, is rarely given the chance to prove itself here. Which means, of course, that there are no case studies to refer to, so no one gives open source a chance etc. etc.

Against that background, a new paper by Darrel Ince, Professor of Computing at the Open University, which rejoices in the deceptively-bland title of “The Re-development of a Problem System”, is pretty exciting stuff. The summary gives a good flavour of why that might be:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Science vs. Intellectual Monopolies

Here's a key section from the new Royal Society report "The scientific century: securing our future prosperity":

Science thrives on openness - the free exchange of idea, knowledge and data. Changes to the way that information is shared are already accelerating developments in certain disciplines and creating new approaches to research. This openness can create a tension with the need to capture and exploit intellectual property. But it also presents an opportunity for scientific collaboration and innovation.

Well, maybe it creates a tension because intellectual monopolies are fundamentally antithetical to science and knowledge. Maybe the scientific community needs to realise this, and ought to refuse to compromise on its basic tenets of sharing knowledge for the greater good, not least because the shift from analogue to digital is magnifying their importance. Maybe the report should have been less pusillanimous in this respect. And maybe, because it wasn't, it will be yet another case of words, words, words...

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Bill Gates (Hearts) Openness a Bit More

Here's an interesting project: the Open Course Library. These are its goals:

* design 81 high enrollment courses for face-to-face, hybrid and/or online delivery
* lower textbook costs for students
* provide new resources for faculty to use in their courses
* our college system fully engages the global open educational resources discussion.
* improve course completion rates

Here's some background on the project:

All of the information about the project is online on a wiki. A big part of this project is for our system to figure out what it means to share our digital educational resources. What does it mean to work with publishers in new ways and get them to reconfigure their content into affordable and modular formats? What does it mean to go out and find open textbooks and evaluate them and modify them? What does it mean to understand the different types of Creative Commons licenses vs. copyright? And what do we have to understand re: the legality around how those licenses mesh or don’t mesh? And then how does that affect the final digital thing that we release at the end, and put out in Rice University’s Connexions [repository]?

We’ve been trying to be very open about the process, so we’ve got this wiki online with all the [project] information. You’ll see the project budget up there with the goals and the timeline for the project. We’ve been having town hall meetings this fall—not only going out to the colleges and meeting directly with faculty face to face, but we’ve just finished our third online town hall meeting. We use Elluminate and anybody in the world is welcome to come [to these meetings which] are archived and put up on the wiki as well. As questions [and] concerns come in, we address those and put the answers up on the wiki.

As you can read, there's an awful lot of open goodness in there. That's great news, of course, but it's also rather remarkable because of the following little fact [.pdf]:

The Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) proposes a partnership between the Washington State Community and Technical College System (CTC) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve access to and completion of higher education for low income young adults in Washington State.

...

The SBCTC requests $5.295 million to implement the Washington State Student Completion Initiative (WSSC). This initiative includes four multi-college student completion projects that will yield long term results by breaking down key barriers to completion throughout the Washington community and technical college system.

One of those projects is the Open Course Library. So good to see Bill supporting all that openness...

Open Source and Security: Are there Limits?

You might think that's a pretty ridiculous question to ask, since the canard about open source being less secure than closed source has been debunked many times. But it seems that some people didn't get the memo:

On Open Enterprise blog.

UrbanLabs OS: Not What You Think...

How about this: an open operating system for a *city*?

Misión: idear, desarrollar, testear, implementar y difundir componentes de un nuevo sistema operativo de ciudad, que mejore los procesos de comunicación, participación y consumo bajo parámetros abiertos, eficientes y sostenibles. Se deberán diseñar y/o reutilizar diferentes tipos de interacciones y de redes entre tecnologías y personas en el espacio urbano, así como mecanismos de visualización, difusión y mejora de cada uno de los componentes del sistema. UrbanLabs OS se puede componer de diferentes proyectos autónomos que obedezcan a estos objetivos, potenciando el desarrollo de los mismos de manera transversal.

[Via Google Translate: Mission: To devise, develop, test, deploy and diffuse components of a city's new operating system, to improve communication processes, participation and consumption parameters under open, efficient and sustainable. Should be designed and / or reuse different types of interactions and networking technologies and people in urban space and display mechanisms, diffusion and improvement of each of the components of the system. UrbanLabs OS can be composed of several autonomous projects which respond to these objectives, encouraging the development of them in a cross.]

Very cool idea.

Update: there's now an English intro.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Open Source Earth

One of the main impulses behind this blog is looking at the ways the ideas behind free software are being applied in other areas. Another major focus is that of the commons in all its forms - all the way up to the ultimate commons, the environment. Well, here's something that combines these ideas:

Open Source Earth is an International Non-Governmental Organization whose mission is to educate people of Earth about Open Source and Resource Based practices, and to get people to use those principles to create what is needed to sustain Human life.

Open Source Earth could also be an answer to what seems to be happening in the global economy today. If we backup our computer data, why not have a backup for how we live. Open Source Earth was formed as a Trans-National Social Movement Organization and has 3,500+ people in it's network around the world. It was formed to use the power of numbers, and increased probability to solve the problems that face humanity today. Sharing knowledge for alternative ways to live and inspiring people to use these technologies where they are in the world to better conditions.

With Open Source Earth, Technologies are Open Sourced, giving the concepts and designs away rather than patenting them for sale or licencing, empowering people with the tools to create what is needed to live and flourish. Technologies such as BioGas Digesters, the effluent of which can be used to grow food, textile, medicine, plants that can be used as building materials, oil producing plants, fuel, plastic or other crops in an organic hydroponics system.

(Via OSBR.)

Hear that Mozilla Drumbeat? No, Me Neither

A few months ago, I wrote about Mozilla's new Drumbeat campaign, "a global community of people and projects using technology to help internet users understand, participate and take control of their online lives."

As a big fan of Mozilla since its earliest days, I'm all in favour of this - just as I'm in favour of its new Drumbeat site for developers. As Mark Surman explains:

Our main goal with this early version of the site is to get people developing and working on a handful of Drumbeat projects. Which is why we're calling it a 'developer version'. It's intended first and foremost for brave souls with good open web ideas who are ready to a) put their ideas on the table and b) help us figure out how Drumbeat should work along the way.

If that sounds like you (brave soul + big open web idea), check out the site and create an account, then go to the 'create a project' form to describe what you'd like to work on.

Well, that's absolutely super-duper and fab, Mark, but just a teensy-weensy little thing: when something is called *Drumbeat*, as in making a noise, getting the message out etc., you don't think it might be a vaguely good idea to *tell people what you're doing*?

Had it not been for the wonders of Twitter, I would never have known about this latest move, and that's both a pity and something of a concern for the future of Drumbeat...

Update 1: There's now a Drumbeat calendar which gives an indication of the planned crescendo...

Update 2: Mark Surman has fleshed things out with this useful post.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

The Bottom-Up View of Free Software

The charmingly-named "Bottom-Up" is one of those blogs that I may not always agree with, but which I know will be intelligently written and well-worth reading. And sometimes I find myself not only in perfect synchrony with its author, Timothy Lee, but wishing I'd put something so well as he has.

Here's a case in point, a post discussing the view that "the government has an obligation to make its decision based on the characteristics of the software, without discriminating based on licensing or business models." This is the "level-playing field" argument that I discussed recently, and pointed out that there were historical reasons to do with vendor lock-in why such "playing fields" actually favoured incumbents.

But Lee comes up with a brilliant analogy:

Suppose federal agencies had a long-standing practice of obtaining their care fleets by renting them from companies like Enterprise and Hertz (or, more likely, government contractors that charged ten times as much as Enterprise and Hertz would). Now suppose the GSA did a study and found that the government would save hundreds of millions of dollars by purchasing automobiles rather than renting them. Suppose further that many agencies were finding that the limitations of their rental contracts (mileage limits, reporting requirements, slow repair service, whatever) were making it harder for them to do their jobs. So the GSA issues new guidelines saying that government agencies should henceforth prefer buying to renting.

Now, there are all sorts of good arguments on both sides of the renting-vs-owning decision. But one argument that doesn’t make sense is to say that government would be “distorting the market” if it decided to buy cars rather than leasing them. A purchased car is a different kind of product than a leased car. If car ownership serves the government’s needs better than car rental, the government is entitled to purchase cars without worrying about how this affects companies in the business of renting cars.

The same point applies to software. The difference between Windows Server 2008 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux isn’t just that one was produced by humorless suits in Redmond and the other was produced by dirty hippies in Raleigh. It’s not even that one costs a lot of money and the other one is free. (Support costs will often dwarf licensing fees anyway).

The key difference is that proprietary software comes with a lot of restrictions about how it may be used—restrictions that don’t apply to free software.

...

The freeness of free software is not an esoteric detail about how software was produced, nor is it primarily a matter of ideology. Rather, free software provides direct and tangible benefits to their users. If property rights is a bundle of sticks, free software vendors give you all the sticks up front, whereas proprietary vendors give you only some of the sticks so they can charge you later for the others. And some of the missing sticks are things that actually matter to government agencies. So it strikes me as a no-brainer that the government would—all else being equal—prefer the type of software that comes with fewer strings attached.

It’s absurd to say that the government has an obligation to be indifferent between firms that attach strings to their products and firms that don’t do so. Obviously, there are circumstances where a firm makes such a great product that it’s worth putting up with the associated strings. But it should be equally obvious that software freedom is a factor to weigh in software purchase decisions. And I don’t anything wrong with reminding government IT workers to keep this factor in mind when they make software purchasing decisions..

The key point here is that different kinds of licensing bring with them very different kinds of benefits, and deciding to favour one over the other is a valid decision. What wouldn't be fair would be favouring a particular type of supplier over another where the benefits they offered were broadly the same: that would simply be a distortion of the software market. But here we effectively have two quite different solutions - different markets - like those of car purchase and car rental. It's a great way of looking at things, and one that I wish I had thought of....

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Of Android and the Fear of Fragmentation

Many were sceptical when Google announced that it was launching another mobile platform. After all, some said, there are already multiple offerings out there, and Google had precisely no track record in this sector: surely it was heading for a fall? The launch of the first Android phone, the G1, seemed to confirm these doubts. Although capable enough, it was clearly not going to carry Android through into the mainstream.

On The H.

Schools for Scandal - the UK's

Here's an interesting piece about software in UK schools. There are a couple of remarks that although incidental, are incredibly revealing of all that's wrong with UK schools in this respect:

several people told me of contracts which meant that every time a school wanted to upgrade software, or even install something free like Mozilla Firefox, they had to pay a hefty fee to their contractor. That meant they were reluctant to change anything, with the result that software was soon out of date.

and

I spoke to Tom Barrett, a Nottinghamshire primary school teacher, who's part of network of like-minded individuals trying out new methods. Tom told me about a lesson where he was teaching probability by asking friends on the Twitter social network to predict the likelihood of snow in their part of the world.

It sounded like an engaging lesson - and the technology cost nothing. Of course there are computers and electronic whiteboards in Tom Barrett's school - but he says using free software or indeed gadgets like mobile phones which children bring to school themselves means added flexibility: "I think some of the larger scale projects like Building Schools for the Future... have been guilty of taking too long to roll out." The danger then, he says, is that the technology moves on, whereas with free software you can keep up to date at no cost.

Obviously, it's scandalous that schools not only don't have the option to install Firefox in the first place - since it's much safer than Internet Explorer - but that they must *pay* to install it afterwards. As the article rightly notes, this means they also pay in another way, through lock-in to old software because they can't afford to do so.

Meanwhile, the other quotation hints at what might be achieved if only free software were more widely deployed: the ability to "keep up to date at no cost".

The fact that this is still a problem in 2010, with schools still locked in to a scelerotic Microsoft monoculture, is a huge blot on the record of all those responsible.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Act on ACTA: Write to Your MEPs

As long-suffering readers will know, I've been banging on about the dangers to free software – and much else – of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) for a long time. The bad news is that ACTA hasn't gone away or got better in that time; the good news is that more and more people are becoming aware of just how awful it is, and why the secrecy surrounding its negotiations is just plain wrong.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Which Licence for Open Source Digital Voting?

Here's a provocative thought:

We’ve dared to suggest that the GPL as it stands today, or for that manner any other common open source license, will probably not work to adequately provide a license to the software sources for elections and voting systems technology under development by the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation.

It's an important issue, since applying open source software to digital voting is something that you really want to get right - for the sake of open source and democracy.

Here are just some of the key issues that the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation faces:

1. Open source licenses rarely have “law selection” clauses. Fact: Most government procurement regulations require the application of local state law or federal contracting law to the material terms and conditions of any contract (including software “right to use” licenses).

2. Open source licenses rarely have venue selection clauses (i.e., site and means for dispute resolution). Fact: Many state and federal procurement regulations require that disputes be resolved in particular venues.

3. There are rights assignment issues to grapple with. Fact: Open source licenses do not have “government rights” provisions, which clarify that the software is “commercial software” and thus not subject to the draconian rules of federal procurement that may require an assignment of rights to the software when the government funds development. (There may be state equivalents, we’re not certain.) On the one hand, voting software is a State or county technology procurement and not a federal activity. But we’ve been made aware of some potential parallelism in State procurement regulations.

4. Another reality check is that our technology will be complex mix of components some of which may actually rise to the level of patentability, which we intend to pursue with a “public assignment” of resulting IP rights. Fact: Open source licenses do not contain “march-in rights” or other similar provisions that may be required by (at least) federal procurement regulations for software development. Since some portion of our R&D work may be subject to funding derived from federal-government grants, we’ll need to address this potential issue.

5. There is a potential enforceability issue. Fact: Contracting with states often requires waiver of sovereign immunity to make licenses meaningfully enforceable.

6. In order to make our voting systems framework deployable for legal use in public elections, we will seek Federal and State(s) certifications where applicable. Doing so will confer a certain qualification for use in public elections on which will be predicated a level of stability in the code and a rigid version control process. It may be necessary to incorporate additional terms into “deployment” licenses (verses “development” licenses) specific to certification assurances and therefore, stipulations on “out-of-band” modifications, extensions, or enhancements. Let’s be clear: this will not incorporate any restrictions that would otherwise be vexatious to the principles of open source licensing, but it may well require some procedural adherence.

Interesting stuff. At the moment:

At this juncture, its looking like we may end up crafting a license somewhat similar in nature to the Mozilla MPL.

Views, anyone?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Microsoft Hoist by its Own Anti-Anti-Competitive Petard

One of the decisive moments in computing history was when Microsoft was investigated for and found guilty of breaching US rules on anti-competitive behaviour. Microsoft's line in defending itself was that it was not anti-competitive, that this investigation was all down to desperate, failed competitors trying to take their petty revenge by setting the government on the company, and that it should be allowed to “innovate”, untrammelled by those silly governmental authorities that just don't understand all this groovy technology stuff.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Jewel in the Open Content Crown Needs Help

Far too few people know about LibriVox:

LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books.

Think about that: turning all public domain books into free audio books. That would be a wonderful resource, and not just for the visually impaired, for whom it is a tremendous boon.

But as is often the case, this fine project is put together by volunteers, with no funding, and that's now a problem:

For four-and-a-half years, LibriVox volunteers have been making audiobooks for the world to enjoy, and giving them away for free. We’ve made thousands of free audiobooks that have been downloaded by millions of people; our site gets 400,000 visitors every month. To date, all our costs have been borne by a few individuals, with some generous donations from partners. However, these costs have become too big.

All they need is $20,000 - a paltry sum for such an incomparably rich holding. Please use the "Donate Now" button on their site to give to them so that they can continue to give to us immeasurably more.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Schneier Nails it on CCTV Folly

Another brilliant essay on security from Bruce Schneier. It's all well-worth reading, but here's the nub:

If universal surveillance were the answer, lots of us would have moved to the former East Germany. If surveillance cameras were the answer, camera-happy London, with something like 500,000 of them at a cost of $700 million, would be the safest city on the planet.

We didn't, and it isn't, because surveillance and surveillance cameras don't make us safer. The money spent on cameras in London, and in cities across America, could be much better spent on actual policing.

When will the politicians face up to the facts on CCTV? (Via Boing Boing.)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

The End of Anonymity

One of the (few) advantages I enjoy over Bill Gates is that I can walk down the street without people recognising me. Not for much longer:

An application that lets users point a smart phone at a stranger and immediately learn about them premiered last Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Developed by The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), a Swedish mobile software and design firm, the prototype software combines computer vision, cloud computing, facial recognition, social networking, and augmented reality.

...

TAT built the augmented ID demo, called Recognizr, to work on a phone that has a five-megapixel camera and runs the Android operating system. A user opens the application and points the phone's camera at someone nearby. Software created by Swedish computer-vision firm Polar Rose then detects the subject's face and creates a unique signature by combining measurements of facial features and building a 3-D model. This signature is sent to a server where it's compared to others stored in a database. Providing the subject has opted in to the service and uploaded a photo and profile of themselves, the server then sends back that person's name along with links to her profile on several social networking sites, including Twitter or Facebook.

But of course, the "opt-in" part is just a fig-leaf. It could be done just as easily even if they don't opt in, provided you have access to their photos, from a passport application, say, and a belief that you have a right - nay, duty - to keep watch over them, purely for their own protection, you understand.

Now, who could possibly fit that description? Any ideas, Gordon?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

The Continuing Scandal of Vendor Lock-in

As I've noted many times, one of the big benefits of deploying open source is freedom from lock-in: using open formats that anyone can implement means that it is relatively easy to change supplier. That's not the case with Microsoft's code and formats, as the following sad saga underlines...

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Death of Open Wifi in the UK

If you needed proof that the UK government simply hasn't thought through the implications of its Digital Economy Bill, look no further than this:

Government admits cafes and open wifi providers will face disconnection but can appeal

Government notes from the Digital Economy Bill Team admit that cafes and other similar businesses will face disconnection: but say that a combination of blocking technologies and the right to appeal means they will be ok

Reading the rest of the government's reply to this point, it's clear that they simply have no idea about the technology. The fact that any blocks put on services can easily be circumvented means that open wifi will, inevitably, be used to download copyrighted material. Which means that those providing it will, inevitably, be disconnected.

This bill simply has "Fail" written all the way through it; the only good news is that once they realise the implications, the entire tourist and hospitality industries will be fighting against it...

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Important Leaked Document on ACTA

An important document about ACTA has been leaked. It's in Dutch, but Jan Wildeboer has kindly provided a translation. It's worth reading all of it, since it gives one of the best - and frankest - reports on what's going on, at least for certain aspects of ACTA.

In the interests of fairness I have to pick out the follow sections on transparency:

POL [Poland], VK [United Kingdom], OOS [Austria], NL [Netherlands], FIN [Finland], IER [Ireland], HON [Hungary], EST [Estonia], ZWE [Sweden] were in favour of more transparency.

FRA [France] did not object against full disclosure if that would be the consensus, but did have concerns about the U.S. position.

ITA [Italy] sided along with France, was also concerned about impacts on free trade agreements, noted that even if plurilateral setting the precedent of ACTA would in principle be adequate closure. DK agreed with ITA and put reserve study status on the documents.

HON [Hungary] however opposed this with the position that the treatment of ACTA documents would be much more logical to compare with the documents of multilateral negotiations.

And more specifically:

UK once again declared its support for full disclosure of the documents, noted the current position [of secrecy] in EU is hard to keep national parliaments (European Parliament), citizens and civil society should be informed, there was nothing to hide.

UK insisted Cie should take a pro-active stance and should try to convince other parties of the need to be transparent.

So, whatever its undoubted faults in other respects, the UK government seems to be trying to do the right thing as far as transparency is concerned, and it deserves kudos for that. Interesting, too, to see that the main hold-out seems to be Hungary, which surprised me given its positive attitude to open source.

Good to see that more and more countries are backing transparency - and that more and leaks are providing it by other routes.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Open Source Re-writes the Rules for Mobile

It is well known that an old PC, underpowered for ever-more greedy Windows versions, will generally run GNU/Linux without a problem. This means that hardware can be kept for longer using open source, saving money and sparing the environment.

One consequence of open source's rapid spread in the world of mobiles is that you can now do the same in that market:

Have an old HTC Tilt, Polaris, Niki, or Vogue laying around collecting dust because you can’t stand using Windows Mobile? Well, according to the XDA Developers forum you may be able to get a little more life out of your old device by hacking it to run the latest version of Android.

This was simply not possible with older, proprietary mobile operating systems, because you couldn't hack them to work on different hardware. With Android, that all changes, opening up a whole new world of mobile re-use. As the same post rightly points out:

This story shows me once again how important Android is to the mobile OS space. The idea of taking older phones and using a free, powerful OS to breath new life into them is the promise of open source software like Android.

Indeed, and another instance of where free software really does give you new and useful freedoms.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Many Happy Returns, Apache

We tend to think of free software as (mostly) new, so the fact that Apache celebrated its 15th birthday yesterday seems pretty extraordinary. We also typically think of free software as being the perennial plucky underdog, but as this post on the Apache Software Foundation Blog reminds us, Apache has been the leading Web server for almost its entire existence...

On Open Enterprise blog.

Amazon Sells GNU/Linux down the River

Here's a particularly stupid move by Amazon:

Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has signed a patent cross-license agreement with Amazon.com Inc. The agreement provides each company with access to the other’s patent portfolio and covers a broad range of products and technology, including coverage for Amazon’s popular e-reading device, Kindle™, which employs both open source and Amazon’s proprietary software components, and Amazon’s use of Linux-based servers.

Microsoft has consistently refused to give any details of its absurd FUD about GNU/Linux infringing on its patents, which is not surprising, since they are likely to be completely bogus and/or trivial. So Amazon is showing real pusillanimity in making this unnecessary deal. Shame on you, Jeff.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Oh, Tell Me the Truth about Patents

One of the pernicious effects of the highly-successful campaign to re-brand intellectual monopolies as "intellectual property" is the abiding belief that whatever the local faults, globally the system is working well. Well, maybe not:

For those with a principled, libertarian view of property rights, it is obvious that patent and copyright laws are unjust and should be completely abolished. Total abolition is, however, exceedingly unlikely at present. Further, most people favor IP for less principled, utilitarian reasons. They take a wealth-maximization approach to policy making. They favor patent and copyright law because they believe that it generates net wealth — that the value of the innovation stimulated by IP law is significantly greater than the costs of these laws.

What is striking is that this myth is widely believed even though the IP proponents can adduce no evidence in favor of this hypothesis. There are literally no studies clearly showing any net gains from IP. If anything, it appears that the patent system, for example, imposes a gigantic net cost on the economy (approximately $31 billion a year, in my estimate). In any case, even those who support IP on cost-benefit grounds have to acknowledge the costs of the system, and they should not oppose changes to IP law that significantly reduce these costs, so long as the change does not drastically reduce the innovation gains that IP purportedly stimulates. In other words, according to the reasoning of IP advocates, if weakening patent strength reduces costs more than it reduces gains, this results in a net gain.

Well, $31 billion: that's a high price to pay for something we don't need... (Via Tim Bray.)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.