I'm with RMS on this

Posted Sep 18, 2006 15:50 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544)
In reply to: Prior art won't solve the software patent problem (NewsForge) by smoogen
Parent article: Prior art won't solve the software patent problem (NewsForge)

He wasn't offering an alternative, he was explaining what a certain project was not very useful.

A well funded organisation in our midst might give people hope, but in this case it is false-hope. Giving the free software community false hope that the patent problem is being tacked is counter-productive.

I also agree with his backfire scenario. A prior art database was discussed by the anti-swpat movement here in Europe a few times and no one ever decided it was worth doing.

Don't worry about public awareness, complete awareness is not necessary. I think we will eventually win in Europe, and in a lot of the World, and eventually it will come back to the USA when they realise they are only impeding themselves.