Open source appears challenged by patents but that fear is often exaggerated. Lawrence Rosen, technology attorney and author of “Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law” (Prentice Hall, 2004), offers a calming view of the patent situation. He describes reasonable steps we can take to prevent patents from interfering with software freedom.
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Nothing new here. It’s the “Collective Shield for ‘us’ against Software Patent” strategy
This too has been documented by the FFII (a big bravo to them again)
http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/shield/index.en.html
http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatgacriEn (for similar initiatives)
Of course, this strategy doesn’t explain what are the benefits of software patents in the first place (I saw a guy from Microsoft who said, they want a portfolio only to defend themselves against litigations, so even them seems to consider that software patents are dumb), and fail to consider that software patents are for more than a threat for Software Libre. They create a mess in the whole industry (why do you thing the fight is lead by the FFII in Europe ?)
So, let’s continue to resist software patents in Europe.