Software patents in Europe 1672
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 02:59:02 +0000, firewoodtim What you don't understand is the interconnectivity of these patents. Every one of the big boys pretty well owns a bunch of chunks of everyone...
Mark, You did, in fact, point out many relevant, likely repercussions of swpats, and I did not intend to trivialize your comments. The main point I was trying to make in my expression of dismay is that this topic, which has the chance of mortally wounding open source software over the long term, should be a dominant theme in many threads in COLA. The few expressions of concern that I see here go largely unnoticed and are dismissed with comments, by many folks other than yourself, that I can only describe as uninformed.
Perhaps they will. I don't know whether you mean to, but you come across as very aggressive. The sentence...
Software patents belong on the front burner here in COLA. It is presently not even on the range. We are all sitting on a time plant, waiting quietly while M$ accumulates sufficient patent-ammunition and devises its legal strategy of attack. If swpats become as acceptable and pervasive in Europe as they already are in the US, we can expect that in the next few years, the Wolf of Redmond will emerge from its cave and go hunting for the likes of you and me.
On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 18:17:50 -0600, Liam Slider What we've had for the last several years is a recluctance on the part of large software corporations owning large patent portfolios to stir up a...
Why else do you think that virtually every major open-free software guru in the business has gone on the attack in the press and in numerous speaking engagements all over the world against the current effort to implement swpats worldwide?
But, actually, swpats will soon become a major topic here in COLA anyway. Only when that time comes it will be in the form of bellowing and whining, because M$ will have finally gone on the attack and it will be too late for anyone here to do anything about it.