From: Jeff Pritchard Date: 2006-01-30T12:59:45+09:00 Subject: Re: About rant on Dave Thomas site, titled 'imitation...' Reading through this thread as merely an interested bystander who only just recently joined the rails community...I found it remarkably easy to play "insert name of world changing technology here" with this discussion. Computer operating systems, cellular technology (I work for Qualcomm), automotive technology...the list is without end. My point is not that one side or the other of this argument "sucks", and the other side is "the right and true virtuous side". The point I would like to make is that this argument is absolutely pervasive in the world today. Somehow, during the same space of time where technology has taken over the world, the ages old mechanisms we use for "paying" those who think well have been almost lost in the shuffle. Just as this remarkable age of communications and other digital technologies have completely overturned the age old methods by which we guarantee to pay a musician, so too, have they upset the apple cart that those of us who hope to make a living by having good ideas would have, in days gone by, put food on the table. To put it another way, we now live in a world where Digital Rights Management has replaced a big building full of vinyl stamping machines as the means of guaranteeing to pay a musician for what he does best. My question would be...what can we come up with to replace the outdated and nearly worthless "patent process" with some sort of a "runs at the speed of technology" mechanism for giving credit where credit is due? Without some new mechanism, we have only two directions to go... 1) the brainy people become secretive and find ways to hide their creations and sell individual tickets to those who would want to use the creations. (obviously, this slows down the progress of all) 2) the brainy people give up on making a living from having big ideas and decide to spend their days flipping hamburgers for a living (obviously, this slows down the progress of all). Just my meager ruminations on a thread that is an interesting new portal through which to view this ubiquitous problem in this "new world". jp -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.