Subject: [TS] Re: best usage vs. ownership
From: Jack Park (jackpark@verticalnet.com)
Date: Wed Mar 15 2000 - 11:12:11 EST
Andrius said:
> Personally, I don't think that "ownership" is a useful concept. I
> don't think morally we have any absolute right over anything, nor do we
> have the right to any priveliges. Instead, morally there is "best
> usage". That means that I myself may use my clothes, or my car (if I
> had one), only so long as I put them to best usage. If someone can put
> them to better usage, they should. It turns out, though, that nobody
> around wants my used clothes. It turns out, that there's a lot of
> people who should have more money - and more responsibility for it -
> then me because they're better at spending it and I've got other things
> to worry about. I think that if we focused on "best usage" instead of
> "ownership", then the world would probably only change 5% on the
> surface, but 95% in terms of how we relate to each other.
Andrius:
First question: who defines "best usage"?
If you can come up with an agreeable answer to that, I'll be happy to vote
for you for the post of big cheese at the UN. If not, may I suggest that you
take some time to recall the history of the Soviet Union. Personally, I
would hate to think that the money I earn and spend on a home for my family
would turn out to be "better used" by, say, some homeless family. Not that
I lack compassion, but, in my judgement, that wouldn't be the "best use" of
resources I personally marshal.
Plus which, in my judgement, the "best use" argument is a red herring in a
debate over whether TheBrain can get a patent that pretty much covers
everything we already do on the web. At issue here, IMHO, is whether the
patent is valid at all, not whether they should "own" something like it.
That is a whole 'nother debate, one which will likely come to pass.
Personally, I look forward to the first challenge TheBrain makes on
somebody. My hunch is that when that happens, there will be a lot of
knowledge-based companies (read: just about every firm of means these days)
joining in the defense. Did you know that Neuron Data has a patent on expert
systems? Sun has a patent on shopping carts. Regents of UC have a patent on
the class of things that include applets. Either a bunch of entities are
going to remain silent, or we're headed for an earth-shaking showdown. Of
course, the other side of this fat coin is that all of these entities got
their patents just to keep others from locking them out of some market and
will remain benign in their stewardship of the rights those patents
presumably provide. That would be fine with me. If so, I'd hope they would
make some public statement to that effect.
Cheers
Jack Park
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