Apply old laws What is a program anyway

ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΑ ΔΙΚΑΙΩΜΑΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΛΟΓΙΣΜΙΚΟ • Apply old laws? • What is a program, anyway? –Property –Expression of an idea? –Series of mental steps, capable in principle of being thought through by a human and not, thereby , appropriate for ownership • Is there anything about software that makes it "special" and justifies a special treatment under regimes of IPR protection? • Can we learn from the role of IPR in other disciplines like, for instance, the life sciences? • Patents are about the protection of inventions; what is the character of inventions in the software field? • Should all software be treated the same or should we distinguish different categories (e. g. , embedded software versus non-embedded software) for IPR protection? • So-called "trivial" patents are one of the major stumbling blocks of the current patenting system: –how can they be avoided? –how can we build-up knowledge about "prior art" to protect against such patents? • Are there alternatives for the current IPR protection mechanisms (copyright, patent) that could work better for software?

THE SOFTWARE INVENTION CUBE

10 ΕΝΤΟΛΕΣ 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people. Thou shalt not interfere with other people’s computer work. Thou shalt not snoop around in other people’s files. Thou shalt not use a computer to steal. Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness. Thou shalt not copy or use proprietary software for which you have not paid. 7. Thou shalt not use other people’s computer resources without 1. authorization or proper compensation. 8. Thou shalt not appropriate other people’s intellectual output. 9. Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you write or the system you design. 10. Thou shalt use a computer in ways that show consideration and respect for your fellow humans.

ΙΣΤΟΡΙΚΗ ΑΝΑΔΡΟΜΗ • • • B. Russell 1940 & 50: Norbert Wiener 1960: Donn Parker 1970 s: Weizenbaum, Maner 1973: Code of Professional Conduct for the Association for Computing Machinery • 1980: Δημόσια συζήτηση, Moor • 1990 - : Σύγχρονη ηθική της ΤΠ

Since Leibniz there has perhaps been no man who has had a full command of all the intellectual activity of his day. Since that time, science has been increasingly the task of specialists, in fields which show a tendency to grow progressively narrower. A century ago there may have been no Leibniz, but there was a Gauss, a Faraday, and a Darwin. Today there are few scholars who can call themselves mathematicians or physicists or biologists without restriction. A man may be a topologist or an acoustician or a coleopterist. He will be filled with the jargon of his field, and will know all its literature and all its ramifications, but, more frequently than not, he will regard the next subject as something belonging to his colleague three doors down the corridor, and will consider any interest in it on his own part as an unwarrantable breach of privacy. - Wiener, Norbert; Cybernetics; 1948.

Cybernetics: or control and communication in the animal and the machine It has long been clear to me that the modern ultra-rapid computing machine was in principle an ideal central nervous system to an apparatus for automatic control; and that its input and output need not be in the form of numbers or diagrams. It might very well be, respectively, the readings of artificial sense organs, such as photoelectric cells or thermometers, and the performance of motors or solenoids. . we are already in a position to construct artificial machines of almost any degree of elaborateness of performance. Long before Nagasaki and the public awareness of the atomic bomb, it had occurred to me that we were here in the presence of another social potentiality of unheard-of importance for good and for evil. (pp. 27 -28)

Donn Parker • Έγκλημα και τεχνολογία των πληροφοριών • Κακή χρήση των ηλεκτρονικών υπολογιστών • “Rules of Ethics in Information Processing" Communications of the ACM (1968) • 1973: Code of Professional Conduct for the Association for Computing Machinery

As an ACM member I will. . . • • • Contribute to society and human well-being Avoid harm to others Be honest and trustworthy Be fair and take action not to discriminate Honor property rights including copyrights and patent • Give proper credit for intellectual property • Respect the privacy of others • Honor confidentiality