The "intellectual property" misnomer

[Gerhard Häring]

Ben Finney wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 15:13:43 -0400, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> 
>>The PSF holds the intellectual property rights for Python
> 
> 
> Ugh.  Please don't propagate this ridiculous, meaningless term.  It's
> used to refer to a wide range of greatly disparate legal concepts; to
> use it as a single term implies that there's some unifying "intellectual
> property" principle joining them together, which is a falsehood.
> 
> If the PSF holds the copyright to Python, please say that.
> 
> If the PSF holds patents which cover Python, please say that.
> 
> If the PSF owns the trademark for Python, please say that.
> 
> If the PSF has trade secrets in Python, please say that.
> 
> But please *don't* muddy the water by saying the PSF holds "the
> intellectual property rights" for Python.  That says nothing useful --
> it doesn't help determine which of the above fields of law are
> applicable -- and only promotes the idea that all these different fields
> of law are part of a whole, which they are definitely not.
> 
> It also encourages another falsehood: that of considering intellectual
> objects as property.  This is something which many people who use Python
> would disagree with strongly.
> 
>     <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty>

Well said.

-- Gerhard