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1+1 (pat. pending) - Mathematics, Software and Free Speech (Groklaw)

1+1 (pat. pending) - Mathematics, Software and Free Speech (Groklaw)

Posted Apr 27, 2011 21:28 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544)
In reply to: 1+1 (pat. pending) - Mathematics, Software and Free Speech (Groklaw) by coriordan
Parent article: 1+1 (pat. pending) - Mathematics, Software and Free Speech (Groklaw)

Actually, maybe our points of view can be merged.

Software developers don't like being attacked by businesses (with patents, for example). And software developers do like interacting with other engineers.

I think we agree on that much. And then I'd add that once someone (a programmer or whatever) acquires a patent and starts using it aggressively, they switch from being considered an engineer to being considered a business.

If you go with that logic, then we're saying the same thing when you say that software developers simply don't like patents being used by businesses (because any aggressive patent holder is a "business"), and when I say that software developers simply don't like patents being used against them.


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1+1 (pat. pending) - Mathematics, Software and Free Speech (Groklaw)

Posted Apr 27, 2011 21:38 UTC (Wed) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]

That's an interesting argument. Unfortunately, it amounts to saying that engineers are OK with software patents only to the extent that said patents are guaranteed to never be enforced. In which case, of course, they might as well not exist. Why add needless complexity?

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