PUBLIC MARKS from bader with tags article & opensource

This page serves as the table of contents for my series of articles entitled "Marketing for Geeks". The central theme here is that if we demystify marketing, it can be competently done by technical people. The series is still being written, with new articles coming soon to an RSS feed near you.

Professeur de droit et d'histoire légale à l'école de droit de Columbia. Article préparé pour la publication à la conférence internationale Buchmann sur le droit, la technologie et l'information, à l'université de Tel Aviv en mai 1999. Mes remerciements aux organisateurs pour leur gracieuse invitation. Je dois plus que jamais à Pamela Karlan pour sa perspicacité et ses encouragements. Merci à Jérôme Saltzer, Richard Stallman et bien d'autres qui ont largement contribué aux corrections et aux améliorations de cet article. J'aimerais spécialement remercier les programmeurs à travers le monde qui ont rendu le logiciel libre possible. Traduction française par Jérôme Dominguez ([email protected]).

The simple question “what’s wrong with software patents?” stirs up controversy and divides the IT industry into two camps like no other. Every group has their own ideology about software patents. Those who don’t like them claim that they are anti-competitive, that they are tools used by industry giants to crush free and open software, that they are bad for innovation, that they are monopolies, etc. Those who like them claim that they are simply units of intellectual property, to be traded like any other commodity.

In the spirit of free and open source software (F/OSS), we are attempting to establish a community in which information will be freely exchanged, so that we may further the understanding of open source and its implications outside the realm of software development. We invite researchers to post their papers on open source and free software here, and to add themselves to the research directory, so that our community can become steadily larger and more comprehensive.

Since I've started my new career as a venture capitalist I have become keenly aware of some of the classic mistakes that geeks make when trying to raise money for a new business. Instead of writing the same comments over and over again I thought I'd try to summarize some of the mistakes that people -- especially smart people -- make when they decide to try to turn their bright ideas into money. Here then is my top-ten list of geek business myths: