

Power corrupts.. can you feel it?

From: Szilard F. Takacs <SillyBilly@TheWaterCooler.com>
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 04:46:12 -0400
Message-ID: <3BB97ED4.2845EFB0@TheWaterCooler.com>
To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Dear guys in power,

	Patents about the internet are doomed to create huge octopus power
entities who will suck off and stomp over every little guy that comes to
the table. It bureaucratizes the net, makes everyone bend over backwards
and it's just a stupid idea. 
	Of course, you, the W3c are a power entity, and as we know, power
corrupts. Don't think that you yourself are not "human," with your own
weaknesses. Everyone loves to be in charge and move the chess pieces. 
	We got a great country because we recognize that power corrupts. And do
everything we can to not let that happen. We kick the president and
other guys in charge out of office every few years routinely no matter
how good they are at what they do, and we'll even go for less capable
guys just to uphold our principles of power corrupts. This is why we
have such a wonderful economy. Compare to corrupt countries. Do you have
any means to kick yourself out of charge every few years? If not, please
consider it. I know this sentence deeply hurts, because which kid wants
to let go of his/her dearest toys, that mean the purpose life itself to
him/her. But you still gotta do it dammit. Presidency means life itself
to the presidents, yet he understands he needs to get kicked out after 2
	People from India come to the US and become millionaires overnight and
cry, because they tried for 20 years in their home country to get a
permit, but they had neither the money to bribe the officials, nor the
connections. Here, they got it for free, in 3 weeks.. what is this
place? Paradise? And it is because of these little guys with great new
ideas is why we have such a beautiful country. Even the PC industry
started out in a garage, or at least some of the brightest minds started
out there. Where are the huge computer corporations of the 60's? Those
just introduce stagnation. Don't take the freshness, the drive, the
innovation out of the internet please, no matter how power-hungry you
are. Otherwise you'd end up like the government of a corrupt country, in
control, but not having much to control, or at least nothing close to
what it could be. Don't choke it down please. 
	Patents do have a purpose in certain research fields, such as drugs,
because such research requires expensive equipment and huge investments,
and even though the end result might be finding a tiny molecule that's
very cheap to manufacture, what it took to get there cost a lot. So to
stimulate investment in research, we have patents, and in the end ,
after 20 years, everyone benefits. It would be unfair for a large
company that invested billions of dollars in testing to come up with a
drug to have no reward compared to the rest who didn't do anything.
That's a right well earned. Unfortunately, little guys can't really play
the game here because of the large initial investment involved.
	But where is the huge investment in software or internet standards? Why
take the away the chance of the little guy to contribute? Wherever you
can keep the little guy in the game, you should. You have to motivate
damn well why someone deserves a patent on the internet. On the net we
are talking about something like this: I come up with an idea that html
tags starting with an H are my intellectual property. So now you have to
watch out not to come up with any html tags that start with an H. Why
make it all this nasty? And where is my huge investment to come up with
the "discovery?."
	Internet standards to me should more like the "law" of the country, the
law of the internet. You come up with the rules: This is how you do
things, we could do it differently, but this works and the juries agree
to it. That's your job dammit, not licensing apostrophes and pound sign
rights. Be selfish, greedy, and you'll ruin this marvel that the world
has now. But power is so drawing, it has such a sweet aroma, it's just

Internet User
Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 04:43:46 GMT
