Often attributed to comissioner of the U.S. Patent Office Charles H. Duell and dated 1899.
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'If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property,
it is the action of the thinking power called
AN IDEA
which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself;
but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition,
seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space,
without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.'
Thomas Jefferson, in letter to Isaac McPherson, 1813.
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1. Ideas aren't physical. Regardless of the legalities, treating ideas as possessions insults their vast combustive power. Jefferson put it best:
'The moment an idea is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.'
2. Ideas aren't worth jack unless other people can put them to use.
3. Ideas won't change the world unless others can improve on them.
4. Ideas grow by participation, not isolation.
5. Ideas change as they grow. Their core remains the same, but their scope enlarges with successful use.
6. Ideas have unexpected results. No one person can begin to imagine all the results of a good idea. That's another reason to welcome participation.
7. Nobody's going to "steal" your ideas, any more than they can steal your cerebrum. You're the source. Authority over the idea begins with you.
8. Authority derives from originality and respect. You can't get respect for your original ideas unless those ideas prove useful to others.
9. There are two reasons other people are going to "steal" your ideas. First, the only people qualified to steal your ideas are too busy trying to get their own ideas to work.
Second, they already don't like your idea because it's not their idea. (But if your idea gets traction, maybe then they'll start to respect it.)
10. In the software world, patents are hand-held nuclear weapons. They may have some deterrent or "defensive" purposes, but they tend to hurt those who use them at least as much as they hurt others.
Where would Linux be if Linus Tovalds decided to make it a proprietary OS? Where would RSS, blogging, podcasting or outlining be today if Dave Winer had locked his ideas behind patents?
'Ten ideas about Ideas', Nov 04, 2006 by Doc Searls.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000119
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"I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it.
We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore.
We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, “Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.”
Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad.
You’ve got to say, “I’m a human being, God damn it! My life has value!”
So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
“I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=juFSNpjbVN4
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'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
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The people you are after are the people you depend on.
We cook your meals,
we haul your trash,
we connect your calls,
we drive your ambulances.
We guard you while you sleep.
So,
DO NOT FUCK WITH US.
