I know a few engineers who are quite proud of their software patents. And many more who seem ambivalent, but are happy to file them if they get a bonus out of it. So, I don't think it's as clear-cut as you think it is.

Engineers love nipping at the hand that feeds them, and talking moral while they profit from what they oppose.

They did say 'nearly universally.' I don't think what you said contradicts that?

It's not as nearly universal as he thinks. That's his point.

Did he ask every software engineer? How did he take this poll?

It's hard to claim that SW engineers are against SW patents since ICs are responsible for submitting and helping to complete the vast, vast, vast majority of the patents filed by big tech.

As with a bunch of the sketchy-as-hell "tech" businesses, a lot of tech people have zero moral compass if it makes them an additional $.

I agree with the principle of your argument, but not with "zero moral compass". You may have a moral compass that goes against software patents in general, but it would require a very strong one to sacrifice your ability to advance your career and your family's quality of life on this altar.

There are financial and career incentives for filing patents. Filing a patent, and being against software patents in principle, are perfectly compatible. Like proponents of FOSS using proprietary software.

Okay, so they made the claim that nearly every software engineer is against it. What is the proof?

Or, even more banally, open office floor plans.

if only the entire workforce of ad tech would just say no.

You're welcome to offer a more attractive alternative, if one exists. The market is always ready.

a more attractive one would be the ending of invasive tracking. according to those involved in ad tech, there is no market without the tracking, so...the alternative is no ad tech

Strange how there are ads in magazines, on billboards, TV, and radio, without tracking. Especially since they're so much more expensive to place.

> Strange how there are ads in magazines, on billboards, TV, and radio, without tracking.

But are they?

Magazines are dying, and ads placed in them do their best to make you hop into digital realm, where you can be tracked - think QR codes, "visit https://...", etc; billboards likewise. TV manufacturers are forcing "smart" TVs down customer throats, proper radio is a thing of the past - to the point that people get away with calling web streaming "radio", as if that bore any relation to broadcasting EM waves. Entertainment is generally consumed on-line, and legacy media are either dying or are retrofitted to be mere shells of legacy experience around the on-line core.

It's a subtle thing, really, that people too often miss. Yes, the leaflets are still the same dumb, analogue paper they were 30 years ago. But that QR code on them, should you scan it, is what plugs you into the surveillance economy.

> Magazines are dying

If they are, nobody can tell: https://www.statista.com/statistics/207850/total-gross-magaz...

> and ads placed in them do their best to make you hop into digital realm, where you can be tracked

So, the ads themselves don't track you. You're primarily concerned because... it encourages people to do things that could result in them being tracked?

This seems like a bit of a stretch to me. The original statement I was replying to was the lament of ad tracking still existing. Even if ad tracking didn't exist though, you would still be constantly confronted with non-tracking ads that are potentially even worse. The proof is across every highway and Nascar wrap and back-date newspaper you collect: we put ads on damn near everything. Tracking or not, people just pay to put content in places. Publishers think it's a fair deal. Unless the Free Market creates a more attractive alternative, you're more helpless than the people in hell begging for ice water.

> So, the ads themselves don't track you. You're primarily concerned because... it encourages people to do things that could result in them being tracked?

Given that majority of the population does not understand any of this, it's effectively the same.

That's irrelevant. The existence of non-tracking ads, ever, proves it is a viable business mode, absent competition from tracking ads (if e.g. regulation banned them). That magazines and TV are not competing well with websites and streaming does not affect this.

That's odd because there are tons of engineers with software patents.

Meaning that it's a necessity to have them due to the system, not that they like it.

Systemic issues usually create these dissonances, go read about it to become a bit less dull.

> Like software patents.

Considering ai folks want to steal people’s work without honouring licensing a lot more will be in favour of patents.

Call me a cynic, but I think a patent regurgitation machine will more likely have a successfully defended patent against the other AI makers than be shut down for the patent infringement it enables.