I am addressing only #5 of your comment above. Specifically - "But just like ENIAC, the computer would be useful for that purpose and that purpose ONLY. With the addition of software, the computer can shift purposes in nanoseconds to address a whole myriad of increasingly-complex problems - all without the need for more silicon or wire." My postulate would be that your statement is correct only within a specific area that the hardware was designed to operate in. The current computer technology is very good at straight forward Boolean decisions, but is not capable of true neural network thought processes, mimicking a human. The point being here is that software, even with a "general purpose" computer is not independent of hardware. The current hardware has vast capabilities (and so does software), that people often think of them being independent; they are not, just that their areas of capability are vast and we don't often see the edges.

That's one of the best comments on this topic I've read. Good one!!

I can sense some frustration here.... :)

Read db's comment here for what it is: an ad hominem attack. jdg answered the question he was posed. db got offended by the answer and instead of asking a question for clarification, accused him (jdg) of intellectual laziness and/or stupidity. But he didn't stop there, going on to impugn his (jdg's) motives in a personal attack. That's absolutely worthy of a downvote. It's unacceptable behavior that you would call out on anyone else and be entirely justified for.

I would like to believe that, but the arguments db presents and the WAY he presents them make that very difficult to believe or accept. His is an ideological viewpoint which accepts no alternatives but his own. That kind of mindset in the face of everyone else here who actually are functional professionals (as opposed to being associative professionals) is exactly the kind of stubbornness that make us all downvote him.

If he wants to be reasonable and inquire about _why_ we view things the way we do and then present counterpoint, we can go with that. But the WAY he approaches the entire argument is nothing short of the tyrannical "my way or the highway" approach. I get that that may be what works in a court of law, but it's the wrong tack to take in a forum. And he only gives fuel to our perceptions of him as an intolerant ideologue when he devolves to ad hominem attacks and spurious references to "religion". Those types of outbursts speak larger than any logical argument he would make and have no other outcome than to alienate. If he wants others to seriously consider his arguments, he needs to demonstrate that he will seriously consider theirs. And I'll be perfectly honest with you that he isn't building any bridges on this topic.

I'm trying to stay away from this argument, honest. But I have to point out the key issue in your statement 'can' vs 'should'. I am perfectly willing to consider DB an expert on 'can'. Those of us relying on the legal environment to allow us to exercise our creativity have every right to 'should'.

Thanks for the paper. It was a bit scholarly and I didn't have time to go through it as thoroughly as I would have liked, but I could sum the entire thing up in two words:

Personal integrity

Why are patents and copyrights an issue? Because individuals have chosen to ignore their own honesty in pursuit of money. In a society of strict personal integrity (honesty), no person would think about taking someone else's idea for their own use without compensating them for it. No one would present another's ideas as one's own or pretend to authorship of something he did not invent.

It was traditional to take your box of punched cards and draw a slant line with a marker so as to have at least a hope of putting the cards back in order if someone dropped it trying to put it into the card reader.

Of course computer operators prided themselves on picking up a whole 2000 card box at once and stacking it into the reader.

1. Take the hardware away and all you get are logical instructions with no engine. Take the software away and you have a paperweight - or at best a single-function tool. The relationship between hardware and software is one of co-dependency - not primacy.

2. A computer is a programmable tool. If you can't program it (alter its ability to function and solve different problems) it isn't a computer. An abacus is NOT a computer. Babbage's differential engine was a _very_ rudimentary computer.

3. That question doesn't make sense. Software doesn't "interact". Users interact. Please explain.

4. A compiler takes the "code" written by a software programmer in a second-, third-, or fourth-generation language and translates it into byte code that actually gets processed through the hardware as pulses of electricity (or light if you're using optronics). If you don't compile the code, it is just ideas from a human about what a computer should do. The compiler translates the _should_ into _can_ and _how_. If you take the very rough example of an automobile engine, the compiler is the transmission. It takes the energy being generated through internal combustion and channels it into a mechanical action that moves the car forward.

5. The original ENIAC was massive and configured to do one thing and one thing only: calculate artillery trajectories. They physically had to re-wire the entire thing to get it to perform a different task. My dad did his programming using stacks of punch-cards when he was in college. Those stacks were the "software" used to set up the computer to perform a single set of computational tasks. In order to change the task, you had to put in a new set of punch cards and you were in real trouble if you got one out of order or dropped that two-foot high stack. Modern computers simply make it very easy to change out the current task(s) of the computer by being able to constantly reconfigure themselves logically - but not physically. That's the beauty of software - it introduces the flexibility to alter a computer's operations and use without physical/hardware change.

Your argument is of the equivalent that every modern computer is no different than ENIAC. What I am trying to point out is that yes, one CAN hard-wire a computer to solve any specific problem given it. But just like ENIAC, the computer would be useful for that purpose and that purpose ONLY. With the addition of software, the computer can shift purposes in nanoseconds to address a whole myriad of increasingly-complex problems - all without the need for more silicon or wire. But that difference is critical in how we see intellectual property in its application to computing.

Gotta laugh at the ad hominem. Gotta laugh at the fact that it is only you who is trying to advance the absurdity that software and hardware are the same thing in spite of all the field experts around you. You want to try to tell us it is we who are being unreasonable or intellectually dishonest. Good grief. Programmers and Electrical Engineers are literally the most logical people you will ever meet. It is ingrained in everything we do. Cause -> Effect. If your position were so overwhelmingly logical, we'd already be buying into it. It should say something spectacularly obvious that we are united in a different interpretation.

I would further note that it is this very definitional argument which colors the two ways we approach this issue. I don't have a problem with software as an intellectual endeavor worthy of property protection. But I also recognize software for what it is - virtual instructions - and what it is not - a physical manifestation. The gas to the engine.

You don't know what you're talking about. It happens frequently, and you're a liar to call me a thief.

thank you. just thank you

There are probably various ways to skin this cat. First, I should have added a qualifier to my description above that all the processes that the software perfoms have to be within the area of capabilities of the hardware.

The differences in opinion that I'm observing here may have to do with the current programmers' viewpoint that software lives in a separate world from hardware. As proof of that, most of the younger software developers that I've interracted with have no idea how the operating system works and have no concept, or interest, in the machine language / compiler interface to the hardware. To be fair, with current computer capabilities and development levels, perhaps they don't need to. But when one tries to dissect the cat, as in patent application, perhaps a different story emerges, as the software does not live in a separate world from hardware.

blarman, the majority of our clients are software engineers. we get it. trust me

You are trying to tell programmers and electrical engineers (two completely different lines of study) they are the same thing. They are not. They are similar but very different disciplines.

The argument db is trying to make is like saying that Francisco D'Anconia and Hank Reardon do the same thing because they both work with metal. Those of us who actually work in the industry understand the critical differences between the two.

But not quite accurate. What actually happens is the actual hardware circuits read the information and change themselves based on the information.

This is pretty much what all signal processing electronics does. The electronics is the controlling factor, not the signal. There is nothing the program can do to get the circuits to do something other that what they are already wired to do.

I don't disagree with your assessment. It is this abstraction from the hardware that not only provides incredible utility, however, but also separation. To conflate hardware and software by saying that software is just a glorified version of hardware is to be abjectly ignorant of the reality of how the two work together.

Reasonable

I don't think that word means what you think it does.

a patent attorney tells you what can be patented and why. Yet, on this post-all of you are experts on what should be patented. You base your arguments not in Objectivism or any other value system I can see-rather pragmatism. Objectivism does not work that way.

no one is telling you what you DO, but what you do has a DEFINITION.

how you can lose points for stating facts is beyond me. up is down on an objectivist website today

thank you for being one of the only ones on this post, to address the paper. and yes, very important concepts.

I would suggest that a proper way to look at software is as virtual hardware. The programming temporarily virtually creates or modifies an electrical logic circuit (hardware) to perform a logical operation. It may then be discarded or repeated.

Learn something http://www.metafysica.nl/circuit.html

Learn something http://www.metafysica.nl/circuit.html