Other evidence of the slow pace of innovation in the software field is found in the attacks made on the patents that are issuing for software-based inventions. The software industry loudly complains that software patents are being granted for ideas that are old. The only answer to this question that is not cynical is that the work of others is not available to the inventors for study. According to this movement, software should be distributed with a liberal copyright waiver, and source code made available to anyone that desires to modify or improve it. With open source, products evolve with input from many developers who all benefit from the work of earlier contributors.
Evolution leads to efficient, stable, and versatile products.
However, even the open source movement exploits and is hindered by copyright. The copyright license limits use of the open source code to products that are also distributed as open source, and for which no patent licenses are required. Thus, users of open source risk losing their own copyrights and contract the patent system out of the product. They lose the benefits of the intellectual property system designed to protect their investment. The Patent System contrasted To my understanding, the software industry is the only one that requires such a movement to enable an understanding of the work of others to promote the advancement of technology.