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Sarah Mei
@sarahmei
, 5 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
Software patents are like allowing railroad companies to patent how far apart their rails are.

In other words - they discourage interoperation in an industry where interoperation is manifestly in the public interest.
Most large companies encourage their designers & engineers to file software patents. However many only use them "defensively" - i.e., when threatened with infringement action by another company, they find a patent they own that the threatener is infringing.
It's a useless cold war. Time to invalidate all sitting software patents and refuse to grant new ones.
Because just like the historical cold war, the real losers are the small players - in this case, the startups & small companies who can't afford to amass a huge patent portfolio.

Software patents discourage innovation and encourage corporate consolidation.
Remember - Oracle bought Sun 100% for its patents. Oracle didn't (and still doesn't) give two shits about any of Sun's products or people.
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Sarah Mei
@sarahmei
I talk a lot about how you can’t be a great developer without great communication skills, but I don’t think people grok how _directly_ your communication skills are reflected in your codebase. Let me give you an example.
Let’s say you’re working in a legacy codebase that, in places, resembles a house on Hoarders (BEFORE they clean it out).
These types of codebases are distressingly common. They’re so full of STUFF that you can hardly move around. To get your work done, you’ve got little goat trails of understanding running through it, like the narrow space between piles of junk in an overcrowded living room.
Read 37 tweets
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Sarah Mei
@sarahmei
Software patterns and their contexts, a thread:
When we talk about software patterns, we spend most of our time discussing the _technical_ contexts they make sense in.

Building an API? Use the gateway pattern! Extracting functionality from a monolith? Use the strangler pattern! Etc etc etc.
In addition to its technical contexts, though, every pattern also has a set of _organizational_ contexts that it makes sense in - and these are usually implicit in our discussions.
Read 7 tweets
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Sarah Mei
@sarahmei
Went swing dancing tonight for the first time since...2005, maybe? I used to be deeeeeep in that scene, but apparently it’s 100% turnover since then😅

HOWEVER - many many more same gender dance partners than there used to be.

So overall: vast improvement. The kids are alright👍🏻
Classic chromed ‘Samba’ dance shoes, circa 2003. Still functional.

Their inhabitant, perhaps not so much 😅
Also during the jam, the hosts asked if people were leading, following, or switching, rather than assuming based on perceived gender ❤️❤️❤️
Read 3 tweets

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Pulp Librarian
@PulpLibrarian
Time to jump in the pulp time machine and head back to: 1992!

Come with me on a trombone odyssey...
In 1992 rap music taught us right from wrong...

Don't Copy That Floppy! A 1992 VHS from the #Software Publishers Association.
In 1992 we had the New #DoctorWho Adventures. Don't judge us!*

(*only @Markgatiss can do that)
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Richard de Nooy
@RicharddeNooy
The great horror of this age is that we know so much, but are still as incapable as ever. How do we stop this madness? What purpose does it serve?
Because I don’t have any better ideas on how to stop this horror, I’d like to retain your attention with an account of another famine, which took place just 75 years ago in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities during the Hunger Winter of 1944-’45.
At the time, my grandparents were running a drugstore in Amsterdam West, which meant they had it pretty easy compared to most other people, because they had plenty to trade in exchange for food, when their money proved to be inedible.
Read 189 tweets
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Zach Smolinski
@ZachSmolinski
Three Patent Myths, a thread:
In addition to doing general counseling work, I’m a patent lawyer. And I’ve noticed there are a few common misconceptions about patents. In an attempt to address those, here’s a thread on patent myths.
I’ll focus on three Patent Myths: 1) That filing a patent application is one of the first things most tech companies should do; 2) That patents are, in themselves, fairly valuable assets; and 3) That patents provide a right to practice an invention.
Patent Myth 1: New Tech Companies Should File Patents Early
This might be the most costly of all patent myths. There is a concept, common among tech company founders, that filing a patent is one of the first legal steps they should take.
Read 25 tweets
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Alan Cooper
@MrAlanCooper
As a programmer, an inventor and an author, I have used and benefited from intellectual property protection all of my professional life. That is, I have used patents, copyrights, and trade secrets in my work. 1
Interestingly, up until the early 1990s, software was not patentable in the USA. As a software inventor, this bothered me. It seemed clear that there were some things in software that should be protectable. 2
I didn’t think algorithms as a class should be patentable, but specific applications of algorithms that accomplished a focused goal, very much like the existing standard for mechanical patents, should be. 3
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Chad Loder ❇️
@chadloder
A thread for the "#software is not political" crowd. Whether you like it or not, all software is political because technology AFFECTS PEOPLE. If you came to #tech thinking you'd escape having to think about people, #politics, and society - you were mistaken. I'll show you why...
Before we start, remember this as you read. Just because YOU think the answer to any of these issues is clear-cut, it doesn't mean that issue is not political.

There are people who take the OPPOSITE position with just as much conviction, and they think it's clear-cut too.
Also - as an engineer, a developer or designer - if you choose to ignore the political and societal implications of your #technology, YOU HAVE MADE A POLITICAL CHOICE.
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David "Bear Feeder" Pollak
@dpp
I have some thoughts on the Oracle v Google case.

First, holding that APIs are subject to copyright is the single most destructive thing to happen to the software industry in my 40+ years of being a software professional. 1/22
Let's start with Sir Isaac Newton: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_…

All of computing... both science and engineering... has been based on incrementally advancing what came before.

Prior to OvG, APIs were the basis of what we could copy and evolve 2/22
The system worked very well. We could copy the API... the "shape," the "idea" of a system, but we could not copy the implementation.

This maps to copyright's "idea expression dichotomy". 3/22
Read 22 tweets

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