Martin Goetz Was Not a Good Person, He Was a Shameless, Unapologetic Booster of Patents That Destroyed and Still Ruin the Software Sector Billions Rely on
ONLY some hours ago a reader told me this news about Martin Goetz, whom we wrote a lot about in the past, confronting loads of revisionism and lies (money buys perceptions, including false ones). The headline itself was partly misleading, boosting a myth: "Martin Goetz, Who Received the First Software Patent, Dies at 93" (they do similar puff pieces when major patent trolls like the father of patent trolling die).
Was this composed for and by the patent litigation microcosm? It is inherently parasitic in nature.
A few hours later I saw that same piece again in my RSS feeds under "Patents", preceded or prefaced with this glowing outline:
“I knew at some point in time the patent office would recognize” computer software, he said. It happened in 1968, helping to ignite the software market.
Helping to what??? Maybe just wordplay, considering the context of his patent (brakes and all).
"The article is full of lies which have been debunked but which are being trotted out yet again," the reader told me, urging that it is "time to debunk... again. e.g. "helping to ignite the software market." [as per the summary]" (cue laughter!).
Maybe they just tried to seem clever with words, but they are relaying misinformation. Many articles have already explained all the damage done by software patents, including to but not limited to software professionals. Who benefited all those decades? Lawyers and monopolistic firms. We have debunked Martin Goetz many times before, need we do it once again just because he died?
"The only good point of that load-of-crap article was to point out that he had benefited from an era where companies invested in new employees and ensured that they got on the job training," our reader said. "Software patents have been shown time and again to stifle innovation and impair the industry."
"Well," the reader added later, "the NY Times article presents a very lopsided, incorrect hagiography of that grifter. The NY Times article will do a lot of damage."
Don't let this "journal of record" have the last word. It's not a proper representation of this man's life.
Maybe another topic could be a roundup/summary of our wiki about the late Goetz, the reader suggested. At the moment we still improve and ameliorate the translation of the old wiki, seeing that many pages now have broken links and no images. When we're done tackling these fine niggles we can improve the wiki pages to include a proper verbal introduction (many pages are just links to blog posts) and maybe a proper "bio" for Mr. Goetz. Just because he's dead doesn't mean there is an obligation to say nice (but false) things about him. █