Timothy Lee of the Cato Institute has an outstanding Op-Ed in the New York Times today titled A Patent Lie. He makes an assertion that I strongly share:
“But don’t software companies need patent protection? In fact, companies, especially those that are focused on innovation, don’t: software is already protected by copyright law, and there’s no reason any industry needs both types of protection. The rules of copyright are simpler and protection is available to everyone at very low cost. In contrast, the patent system is cumbersome and expensive. Applying for patents and conducting patent searches can cost tens of thousands of dollars. That is not a huge burden for large companies like Microsoft, but it can be a serious burden for the small start-up firms that produce some of the most important software innovations.”
Toss the trade secret doctrine into the mix and you are all set.
My friend Shawn Broderick (currently CEO / founder of TrustPlus) just wrote a blog post wishing Chron X a happy 10th birthday. I was an investor in Genetic Anomalies – the company that Shawn started that created Chron X – and I remember being intrigued by the idea of “virtual property” in 1997. Amazingly – 10 years later – Chron X is still around and virtual property is now commonplace.
It’s been a little over 20 years since the first major production system that I wrote went live. It was creatively named “Bellflower Dental Group Patient Management System.” As of a few years ago it was still being used (yes – at Bellflower Dental Group) – I wonder if it’s still happily pumping out insurance bills for root canals.
While 10 years might seem like a long time in the software industry, as the industry ages, it’s not so long anymore.
40 years ago Logo was created. When I was at MIT in the 1980’s, I worked for a semester as a UROP (undergraduate research opportunities program) in Seymour Papert’s lab. The Coleco Adam had just come out and was going to revolutionize the world of home computing with a variety of features, including a version of Logo the lab I was in was porting to it. Anyone remember the Coleco Adam?
Recently, the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab released (or at least publicized) Scratch. After playing around with it for a little while this morning, it’s obvious to see Scratch’s roots in Logo. However, the creators of Scratch have also built an underlying social network for all Scratch programmers / programs / users. This is the hidden power – within five minutes of exploring I started to find all kinds of interesting programs that I could look at that helped me learn how Scratch worked. In addition, all the normal social network things applied (e.g. in “My Stuff” I have friends, requests, galleries, projects, and favorites.)
Learning how to program is hard. I learned on an Apple II in Basic and 6502 machine language. That impacted how my brain is wired since I was 13 at the time. Today, when I look at something like Scratch, I can see how the next generation of computer scientists (who are < 10 right now) are going to think about software completely differently than me. That’s good.
I’m amused by the endless awards that our industry bestows on people and companies, but I can’t avoid the seduction of asking you to vote. I promise you don’t have to make choices between Clinton and Obama – yet.
The Webware 100 are up for selection. Several of my friends are listed as candidates.
Please vote early and often (ok – you only get to vote once – so early will have to do) for them.
It’s 2007. I was ready to go for my long run at 9am. It’s 9:27am. I’ve spent the last 27 minutes trying to get iTunes on my Vista-based laptop to sync my newly downloaded podcasts properly with my Nano.
10 minutes was spent fighting with iTunes before I gave up trying to get it to find my Nano (and then trying to close / restart iTunes.) 10 minutes was spent rebooting Vista (shut down / restart / reload everything.) It’s finally now syncing properly. Yes, I’m still living the iTurd life.
The age old solution of “turning it off and turning it back on” is the solution. Egads.
Now – before you just say “switch to a Mac” – I have a whole series of things I do on a Vista box that don’t work well on a Mac, so I’m basically out of luck there also. Maybe I should have been a luddite this morning and just gone run without my iPod and my Garmen Forerunner 305. Or maybe I should just quit whining and accept that as long as this stuff is completely messed up, there’s massive opportunities for all the companies I like to invest in. “Sucking less” continues to be an effective strategy.
I had a great weekend in Boston with the men over 5 feet tall in my family. We watched the Red Sox paste the Braves (13–3) and then watched the Braves paste the Red Sox (14–0). It was rainy and shitty all weekend, but that didn’t stop us from having a great time.
When reading my blogs this morning as I woke up and prepared for my long run, I came across yet another article on Geni and their $100m valuation. I’ve never really been into genealogy so I ignored Geni, but after spending a weekend with some genetically linked people, I was inspired to give it a try.
The splash screen was great – it got the info from me that it needed to get started (first name, last name, email address.) I was ready to roll but then got caught up in the three email “confirm this is you, change your password, confirm that you are really you” loop. Then – the hell began. First problem – the Tree screen wasn’t centered properly in Firefox and as a result I couldn’t enter my father’s name. I fired up IE to try that and had a similar problem, but the formatting was a little better so I was able to pull it off. I entered my mother and nothing appeared. I entered her again and it said something like “we found her – is this the one?” I hit ok and it said “sorry – data problem.” I then entered my brother and got the “sorry – data problem” error.
Done. Less than 10 minutes and Geni lost me, at least for now. I have no clue what the real problem was and if I’m an isolated case, but it’s bad news when the user experience breaks on a site that demands extreme viralness to succeed. I’ve written in the past about how all the little things really matter with consumer facing sites. My experience this morning is yet another example to toss on the pile.
Postscript – after writing this post, I closed my browser and started again from scratch to see what would happen. The data sort of is there (my dad, mom, and brother appear), but when trying to add Amy I had the same UI problem in Tree view and when I go into List view there doesn’t appear to be a way to add a new person to the tree. Now I’m really done for now.
Time to go run around the Charles River in the rain and ponder the next generation of user interface paradigms while I’m in the proximity of MIT and the Media Lab.
I love my iPod Nano. I hate iTunes. It’s like the two things exist in this parallel universe of good and bad. I suppose one explanation is that one is hardware and the other is software, but that’s not really valid as the second best part of the Nano is software. It could also be that I use Vista instead of OSX. But then that would be a conspiracy theory.
This is the second day in a row that I thought I had the podcasts on my Nano that I’d downloaded into iTunes. I even thought I’d tested things this morning. Voila – they were there – but they didn’t work. And I’d like to think I’m good at this stuff.
I really wanted the Zune to be good. As a runner there is no comparison – you almost need a backpack to carry the Zune around while the Nano fits – well – pretty much anywhere.
Yippee! Jason had some comments up at AsktheVC. I can’t wait until the day comes that all the “obvious stuff that has been patented” gets invalidated (the patents – that is.) Having just read Supreme Conflict I have a new appreciation and respect for the Supreme Court.
I rarely read an entire magazine. I typically just skim them in the bathroom and tear out the articles I actually want to read.
The Forbes 90th Anniversary Issue was an exception. I realized I was tearing out almost every article so I sat down (outside the bathroom) and read most of the magazine (there were a few skimable articles.) The cover title is The Power of Networks and has 28 essays from diverse, smart, and extremely articulate people. For a sample, take a look at David Gelernter’s essay on The Inside-Out Web (right on the money with Defrag.)
If you don’t subscribe to Forbes, stop in at a newsstand in the next airport or drugstore that you are in. It’s a white cover with a red border – you can’t miss it. Perfect for your next 2+ hour airplane ride.