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Make your national anthem to a patent infringiment!

Crazy idea? Well, yes. :-)
Possible? I think so.
The idea is a way to show how sick software patents
really are, and that everything gets patentable when
you allow patent on written works that you publish(software).
It is also a way for a bright programmer to help fighting
this mess in a way that fits his knowledge.

Write som kind of interpreter that turns your national
anthem in plain text to a working program that infringes
a software patent. If you succeed, you have done nothing
wrong, you have only defined a programming language (sort of).
But anyone hwo write and put the national anthem on the
net infringes a patent since they are "making" and
distributing the infringing "program".

Ouuch, very sick indeed.

How common this interpreter then will be does not matter,
the "program" (the lyrics) infringes, or else would programmers
programming for the more obscure plattforms stand outside
both the law and the SWP.

Is there anyone that picks up the glove and take on this
challenge? I would do it myself if i had the knowledge, i
just know enough to think that it is possible. A thing like
this ought to make some headlines that forces politicians
and decicionmakers to start use their heads in this matter,
to really show what a program is and how idiotic SWP is.

Here you can find a generated database of 22 644 screwed
european patents (it is a crawler that searches the EPO
database based on keywords, classification, like a spamfilter:

http://gauss.bacon.su.se/indices/

So, are there anyone that picks up the glove and take on
this challenge? I think it could be done, just to show
the wierd consequences.



--
Software is not manufactured, it is something you write and publish.
Keep Europe free from software patents, we do not want censorship
by patent law on written works.

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This is off-topic. Take it elsewhere; it's not wanted here.

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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+Alan Hicks+ wrote:
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> Hash: SHA1
>
> This is off-topic. Take it elsewhere; it's not wanted here.
>

Not here either.

What are you doing about it?


--
Software is not manufactured, it is something you write and publish.
Keep Europe free from software patents, we do not want censorship
by patent law on written works.

steelneck wrote:

> Make your national anthem to a patent infringiment!
>
> Crazy idea? Well, yes. :-)
> Possible? I think so.
> The idea is a way to show how sick software patents
> really are, and that everything gets patentable when
> you allow patent on written works that you publish(software).
> It is also a way for a bright programmer to help fighting
> this mess in a way that fits his knowledge.
>
> Write som kind of interpreter that turns your national
> anthem in plain text to a working program that infringes
> a software patent. If you succeed, you have done nothing
> wrong, you have only defined a programming language (sort of).
> But anyone hwo write and put the national anthem on the
> net infringes a patent since they are "making" and
> distributing the infringing "program".
>
But that would be a very contrived programming language. I mean, would you
consider a bunch of #DEFINEs to be enough? You certainly would need to show
that you could implement your language in itself, otherwise it could be
argued that the language is the program not the anthem.
Maybe try running various anthems through the whitespace interpreter? See if
any of them already form patent-infringing programs.

steelneck <jemamo@telia.com> wrote:

> Make your national anthem to a patent infringiment!

> Write som kind of interpreter that turns your national
> anthem in plain text to a working program that infringes
> a software patent.

When applying the Forth language here, so the above is really a trivial
exercise. First you write a specific language, to be able to write tunes.
Then you write tunes. Forth hardly steals any letters and signs for syntax,
so the notation may look much the way one prefers.

The following is small and should work for simple tunes. For polyphonic
writing, one should insist on a multitasking Forth (which should as well be
quite common to find; but notation will become a bit less portable).

( -------------------------- )

: play-a-tone ( pitch length --)
( * dummy, may produce a sound.)
2drop ;

variable duration
: s= 4 duration ! ; ( ... short)
: e= 8 duration ! ;
: es= 12 duration ! ;
: q= 16 duration ! ; ( <- the quarter note)
: qe= 24 duration ! ;
: h= 32 duration ! ;
: hq= 48 duration ! ;
: f= 64 duration ! ; ( ... long)

: mt ( pitch -- pitch+)
( * short name for laying down a note during compilation:
store and increment for next candiate.)

create ( <- build word)
dup c, ( <- associate pitch)
1+

DOES> ( --)
( * run-time: fetch pitch, play it)

c@ duration c@ ( pitch, length)
play-a-tone ;

( ** introduce chromatic scale in three octaves. **)
( 'mt' is a 'building word' now, which inherits a method.)

0 ( <- compilation pitch value for deepest tone)

mt _c mt _c# mt _d mt _d# mt _e mt _f
mt _f# mt _g mt _g# mt _a mt _a# mt _b

' _c# alias _db
' _d# alias _eb
' _f# alias _gb
' _g# alias _ab
' _a# alias _bb

mt c mt c# mt d mt d# mt e mt f
mt f# mt g mt g# mt a mt a# mt b

' c# alias db
' d# alias eb
' f# alias gb
' g# alias ab
' a# alias bb

mt c_ mt c#_ mt d_ mt d#_ mt e_ mt f_
mt f#_ mt g_ mt g#_ mt a_ mt a#_ mt b_

' c#_ alias db_
' d#_ alias eb_
' f#_ alias gb_
' g#_ alias ab_
' a#_ alias bb_

drop ( <- discard augmented compilation pitch value)

: |: ( --)
( * compile loop to play twice)

s" 2 0 do" evaluate ; immediate

: :| ( --)
( * end of loop to play twice)

s" loop" evaluate ; immediate

( -------------------------- )
( Now, one may proceed to composing. Give the tune a name by using a leading
':'; adjust duration of single notes as needed and add each note in turn;
stop definition by ';')

: some_fragment
q= f
q= f e f g hq= a e= g f
q= g g g e= f e q= f d c ;

( -------------------------- )

> Is there anyone that picks up the glove and take on this
> challenge?

I did not invent this. Maybe you are not so long around in the software
circus (or did not look around far enough), so not to expect a simple
answer, technically?

There is for sure other notations around, for tunes, but the above engine
might be adjustable for the purpose.

There is as well specific motivation to make such heavy announcement for
Forth in a 'C'-based circus, after, tradititonally, the writing in Forth all
the time (same old as 'C') has had much more of the self-understanding, as
an exercise to _writing text_ and much less to _producing a program_, which
ends being understood as a product. This is, since 'compiling' is understood
as quite a trivial exercise in Forth (it is translated: 'append to the
dictionnary'). The meaning of 'source-code' changes by this. In many cases,
'the' source-code already is 'the' program'. So there is much less reason,
to identify 'the program' as tight part of 'the machine'. Instead, it is
text.

A similar way of view has been introduced to the 'big circus' in computing
only lately, by the OS efforts, Linux and xBSDs. Only here, it is obvious
to the great public, that 'program' consists of written text - after the
compiler has been moved, to be a wide-range tool, part of the operating
system for most machines, instead of just being a money machine for some
specialists. (And this is, what I like as to be appreciated with slackware -
nearly everything just compiles out of the box. Merci!)

***

But you're right, when being able to produce a stand-alone program (this
depends on the Forth implementation), so the tune is sealed inside. Maybe,
there will be a switch applicable from outside, to change the method?
Instead of playing the tune, it could control, say, a production line for
pencils instead?

(So I find myself ranting...)

Instead of being pushed to think a bit harder, about what is happening in
such a case (I mean: not in the engineering sense), thoughts seem like
coming along more and more streamlined in a warehouse sense. This is what I
hate most about the above issue, you brought up: it is one more wall in the
way, so to render a bit more into luxury, how to keep up with straight and
appropriate thoughts, about how the world looks like. Instead, that
warehouse dream is sold as facts, and other thoughts obviously are expected
to follow in turn - even if something is wrong in the game.

Now, as well copyright is a compromise, but at least, this way some respect
comes along with a commonly accepted protection, so the idea ist not lost:
there is a world beyond of the warehouse. And beyond, there is tongues, as
treasures, and language use makes for everyday exchange with the biggest
treasures mankind has. Linguists might be asked, to learn more - probably,
one ought to forget, for first, about copyright and similar results of
common crazyness in order to be able to keep track of what state of the art
is.

Software circus quite for sure is not aware of state of the art here. Some
big industry quite for sure is far too close, coming along with imposed
training into different channels of 'should' - with such a 'should' taken
far too often for an 'is' - and 'public engagement' too often be expected to
put the picture right again, even when hindered by strategic victims and
other lousy accidents.

Talking about 'the genious' has been a fine construct of thoughts back in
19th century, to harmonize fine ideas of artists with early essays in
industrial management. It allowed to identify some fine idea with some
artist - in same terms, as such identification became necessary for to
merely survive, for such an artist. Thus, this story is entering the
warehouse then (and the winding road of exploitation, in same terms - e.g.
in music, it meant, not just to perform with high quality, but being forced
to exploit some style, in favour of some specific recognition - now, as one
may find easily, at beginning of 'modern times' in music, around 1910, such
exploitation had until now made suspect about everything which could be
construed with musical craftmanship, en vogue at that time, with its main
roots having drawn an epoch of around 250 years at that time).

This is ideas which have been borrowed to the warehouse, built on some
identification of 'the genious' (nowadays it may be preferred to stress, how
'creative' all those personal involvements are, but in spite of the ancient
term having become a bit suspect, in terms of a warehouse, the old genious
should still wait just around the corner, after the underlying construct
hardly changed).

Now, the warehouse asks for more. The idea has to be inside 'the thing'. As
soon as 'the thing' is in the warehouse, the idea goes with it. The idea is
expected to remain there, after having been declared to belong to 'the
thing'.

This is the point, where any respect may have been gone away, finally, when
'the idea' is frozen into 'the thing', and as soon as that thing is
shreddered, in order to disappear on the garbage hill, that idea is expected
to disappear as well, since it has been kicked out of the context of all
that treasure of ideas, long before (a linguist might want to introduce the
term 'structuralism' here). So in sequence, finally, it looks to me like
kind of a lost effort in history of thoughts. But it has been paid for.

For sure I understand, that a lot of short-living things are in just
reasonable terms associated with short-living ideas.

But then there is a short-minded try on the way, to scale into much bigger
grades, by refraining from to acknowledge an appropriate insight - when
trying to scale from some funny ideas in specific plastic dreams, up to
treasures of thoughts elsewhere, which are kept lively in everyday
correspondance. Money cannot buy the latter. It just does not translate.
Instead, it translates other way round to installation of severe
hinderances. As if installing measures of war against everyday
correspondance, which it cannot control. Exploitation of values might refer
to dead fragments, lying around in such 'past-tense future', which is
missing a simple present tense.

Looks to me as if to try, to kill elephants for the profit of some bit of
ivory to earn. Or about as if to believe, planting 1000 little trees could
replace a extinct ecosystem of an exploited region.

Maybe you are right, and it works to just apply enough phantasy of
'presence' to a 'machine' - and such a 'machine' probably would have to
neglect such presence (understood by me for first in terms of a grammar
tense)? As one may learn in debate regarding that topic in Europe, there is
reasonable positions worked out (in above terms: there have quite 'present
arguments' been worked out[*]), but the nuisance sits, where such arguments
are just wiped away in strategic fights. Hunters of elephants seem not to
have changed much in mentality.

This gives big reason for still being on the alert, so, as to keep contact
with one's deputy to the European parliament.
[*] As about the borderline, when to regard the idea to be part of 'the
thing'.