Is The Lone Coder Dead?

CyNRG writes "The little guy. The one-person software company. Can it still exist today? That's me. I'm once again, after many years, writing my own commercial software to sell. A few things have changed: the patent feeding frenzy. This is my main concern. My perception is that one must verify that you don't infringe on any patents when developing new cool software, and that the explosion of patents granted by the USPTO has reached epic proportions. If this perception is true, then that makes it almost impossible for the Lone Coder to create something new that doesn't infringe on other patents. The amount of money required to perform the due diligence research seems like it would be greater than the amount of money needed to develop the software, or even the total revenues that the software could ever generate. Please someone tell me I'm wrong!" Is he?

Comments

Someone has to do it

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - The Lone Coder was found dead in front of his home computer this evening. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to programming culture. Truly a geek icon.

Re:Someone has to do it

[$alex_n42]

'ees not dead, 'ees pinin'

Re:Someone has to do it

[Ryosen]

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Re:ok - you are wrong!

[StikyPad]

"Carson.. promise you'll never die."

"You know I can't promise that."

"If you did, I'd make love to you right now."

"I promise. I will never die."

Re:Of course not

[doi]

Shit, don't bother writing it first, just patent something!

Re:Someone has to...PRELIMINARY AUTOPSY RESULTS

[darkPHi3er]

"The Lone Coder was found dead in front of his home computer this evening"

In a later news release of the Preliminary Autopsy Results:

1. He had Type II diabetes from the consumption of Mountain Dew/Code Red.

2. He has extremity palsy from the intake of Jolt Cola.

3. He was having Grand Mal epileptic seizures from the MSG in his local Chinese takeout.

4. He had become reclusive with the shock of finding out that real, live women DIDN'T have staples in their navels.

5. He hands had become claws due to the carpal tunnel and tendonitis from his non-ergonomic keyboard.

HOWEVER, the proximate cause of death was...

6. He attempted to read the entire set of Don Knuth's TAOCP (The Art of Computer Programming) AND "Regular Expressions in PERL" in the same evening and HIS HEAD EXPLODED!!!

LATE BREAKING NEWS:
In a joint press announcment, Microsoft, Sun, Apple and SCO announced that they were SURE that the Lone Coder's work infringed on their IP, and they would be seeking redress beyond the grave, from the appropriate authorities, saying "If ANYONE thinks that merely by DYING they can escape the reach of our lawyers enforcing our intellectual property rights, they will find out just how far we will go to make sure that every line of ever written has the protection it deserves!"

He is survived by his parents, who will be paying off his student loans from MIT for the rest of their natural lives, and his high school sweetheart, who, unknown to the Lone Coder, due to lack of consortium, became a lesbian several years ago and moved to North Beach.

Richard Stallman has annouced that he's quite sure the Lone Coder's work was pretty much something that he had written in LISP on a napkin, one lunch 30 years ago at the Lampoon, but he was kinda buzzed and "...wasn't sure what i did with the *&)&*(&)( napkin...!"

Re:Someone has to...PRELIMINARY AUTOPSY RESULTS

[Tassach]

He had become reclusive with the shock of finding out that real, live women DIDN'T have staples in their navels.

Coulda fooled me. This summer it seemed like every other 20-something woman was wearing a shirt that let her belly button hang out -- and the majority of them had navels that were decorated with metallic devices of some kind or another. Piercing... staple... same thing.

Sheesh, kids these days :-)

The Details

[PetoskeyGuy]

LoneCoder does indeed appear dead. LongCoder started posting to slashdot in early 2000. His 7 short comments receiving a score of 1 each caused him to take a 4 year break from posting to slashdot.

A carefully worded post praising Suse Linux netted him a score of 4 he briefly basked in his own reflected glory. Unfortunately his very successs was also his downfall. Unable to handle the thought of another 1 point post after gaining acceptance for the first time through /. moderators, LoneCoder took his own life.

On his computer were found many text files containing various drafts of "In Soviet Russia", "Imagine a Beaowulf", and other unposted commemts along with his predictions on their possible scores.

He leaves behind No Friends, No Foes, No Freaks, and No Fans, and no forwarding email.

Remember his final words: SuSE rules!!