Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Marco Ament:
To evaluate whether software patents are a net gain for society, we need to evaluate their reality, which differs quite a bit from most arguments for why patents are necessary.
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Software patenting has resulted in a mess of trivial, invalid, and duplicate patents being issued and dysfunctionally “enforced” by threats and settlements at a tremendous cost to society.As a working software developer, the thought of accidentally and unknowingly stumbling into someone’s patent is terrifying. There’s no question that it has hurt our industry in the past and will continue to artificially restrict progress indefinitely, and there’s little convincing evidence that the supposed benefits exist in practice at a large enough scale to maintain the status quo.
