Software Patents episode 129: FUD and Loathing from Redmond

[Anonymous]

Some collected notes and references for your upcoming interview with Brad Bowling.

1) What risk to USERS of open source from patent claims.

2) What risk from Microsoft Patents to open source given the certainty of Mutually Assured Destruction.

3) What anti-software patent advocates want.

4) Questions to USPTO On-Line and the OSDL's prior art initiative.

5) Microsoft are ONLY offering patent protection under very limited conditions ( Software developers are actually better off developing on widely distributed GPL licensed software ) .

[Patrick]

Good stuff. Thanks for the primer for tonight.

[Patrick]

I just found this article regarding patent trolls a case going to the Supreme Court here in the U.S.:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1943965,00.asp

[daemonbob]

First about the fat long filename hack - worst case for Linux is that long filename support would have to be removed from the fat drivers. The files would still be accessible under Linux - you just wouldn't see the long name but you'd still see the files and would still be able to manipulate them. Second point is that this patent doesn't impact those who produce the flash media b/c the hack is in the way the media is accessed, not in the format of the media itself.

Next about software patents. I view software as a creative expression, and therefore subject to copyright but not patents. I think that patenting a software process is akin to patenting a story plotline. Imagine the mess that'd make of the publishing industry if that were allowed (esp from submarine patents by people with no literary talent who could suck off the tit of talented writers who happen to include those plotlines in their stories.)

Anyway, that's what I think.