[p2p-research] Non digital commons a lot more complicated than Free Software

[M. Fioretti]

On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 15:28:26 PM +0700, Michel Bauwens (michelsub2004 at gmail.com) wrote:
> hi marco,
> 
> i find your patent argument quite remarkable as a free software
> advocate, i.e. about patents, both historical and contermporary
> evidence, nearly all research that has been done about is, suggests
> IP and patents are a drain on innovation,

Michel,

I am not sure I understand completely your comment/question. What I
wrote:

> > immateriality. ME, I've always known very well that the so-called
> > "cyberspace" is a very physical thing, and that things like the
> > Free SW movement or even these chats we're having are only
> > possible because personal computers are affordable, that is only
> > because a few multinationals use patents and consume a lot of
> > physical resources to produce them in huge quantities.

is only a description of the current situation, not a judgment pro or
against patents. And innovation simply was not in my mind when I wrote
the paragraph above, because the topic of this thread is whether the
digital commons are immaterial or not.

Computers and the Internet have become (relatively) affordable today
only thanks to a technology and economical model that is anything but
commons. How innovative or innovation-friendly that model is is a
separate issue, and maybe irrelevant in this thread, since the digital
commons already exist and prosper on top of it even if it's stifling
innovation. Was it Booney in Berlin who said (speaking of biotech)
that you don't need to have good technology to be successful?

Of course, we could and should discuss at length if and how much
outright abolition of patents would _lessen_ the environmental
footprint of the digital commons. But since that footprint would still
remain BIG, this was in my mind a topic for another day.

Marco