Hands pop up. Stallman points to a member of the golf shirt-wearing contingent. "Without patents, how would you suggest dealing with commercial espionage?"
"Well, those two questions have nothing to do with each other, really," says Stallman.
"But I mean if someone wants to steal another company's piece of software."
Stallman's recoils as if hit by a poisonous spray. "Wait a second," Stallman says. "Steal? I'm sorry, there's so much prejudice in that statement that the only thing I can say is that I reject that prejudice. Companies that develop nonfree software and other things keep lots and lots of trade secrets, and so that's not really likely to change. In the old days-even in the 1980s-for the most part programmers were not aware that there were even software patents and were paying no attention to them. What happened was that people published the interesting ideas, and if they were not in the free software movement, they kept secret the little details. And now they patent those broad ideas and keep secret the little details. So as far as what you're describing, patents really make no difference to it one way or another."
"But if it doesn't affect their publication," a new audience member jumps in, his voice trailing off almost as soon as he starts speaking.
"But it does," Stallman says. "Their publication is telling you that this is an idea that's off limits to the rest of the community for 20 years. And what the hell good is that? Besides, they've written it in such a hard way to read, both to obfuscate the idea and to make the patent as broad as possible, that it's basically useless looking at the published information to learn anything anyway. The only reason to look at patents is to see the bad news of what you can't do."
The audience falls silent. The speech, which began at 3:15, is now nearing the 5:00 whistle, and most listeners are already squirming in their seats, antsy to get a jump start on the weekend. Sensing the fatigue, Stallman glances around the room and hastily shuts things down. "So it looks like we're done," he says, following the observation with an auctioneer's "going, going, gone" to flush out any last-minute questioners. When nobody throws their hand up, Stallman signs off with a traditional exit line.
"Happy hacking," he says. Endnotes
1. See "Grateful Dead Time Capsule: 1985-1995 North American Tour Grosses." http://www.accessplace.com/gdtc/1197.htm 2. See Evan Leibovitch, "Who's Afraid of Big Bad Wolves," ZDNet Tech Update (December 15, 2000).
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0Y/A>
3. For narrative purposes, I have hesitated to go
in-depth when describing Stallman's full definition of
software "freedom." The GNU Project web site lists four
fundamental components: The freedom to run a program,
for any purpose (freedom 0). The freedom to study how a
program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).
The freedom to redistribute copies of a program so you
can help your neighbor (freedom 2). The freedom to
improve the program, and release your improvements to
the public, so that the whole community benefits
(freedom 3). For more information, please visit "The
Free Software Definition" at
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html. 4. See Eric
Raymond, "Shut Up and Show Them the Code," online
essay, (June 28, 1999). 5. See "Guest Interview: Eric
S. Raymond," Linux.com (May 18, 1999).
http://www.linux.com/interviews/19990518/8/