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

Re:Bittorrent

[NeoSkandranon]

Network admin: Do we really want to hire the creator of a protocol capable of swamping our network with overhead and STILL not achieving speeds any faster than traditional data transfer methods?

Re:air

[jeisc]

World company has a patent on breathing so hold your breath!
i wrote that so don't steal it.

Re:Someone has to do it

[msoftsucks]

Haven't you heard!

The American dream is dead and buried. Has been for several years. This country is no longer a country of inventors, of self reliant people, of people that for the most part are good at heart.

Now its the megacorps that own this country. The M$'s, the Walmart's, the RIAA and a host of other global companies and orgainizations control the laws of this country. Little by little our rights are being stripped away, and we are letting them! How about the almost dead idea of fair use? How about the constant stripping of privacy in any and all parts of our life? How about the curtailing of rights for TV programming (the broadcast flag debate)? How about the rights of broadcasting companies to grow even larger(recent FCC ruling allowing media companies to own more in a particular market).

The reality is the the US is no longer leading the world. It is slowly becoming a third world county because we are allowing the greedy corporations to dictate what we can and cannot do. It is becoming a county where the middle class is slowly dieing. It used to be if you worked hard enough you could change your social status. If you were poor, you could become middle class. If you were middle class you could move up to upper class. Now the greedy wealthy corporations are doing everything in their power to prevent this. This county is becoming a country of only two classes - the wealthy and the poor. The middle class is actually losing ground and many are moving into the upper-poor class. Just look at how many greedy companies have moved their jobs to India and China. They state that they have to do this for competitive reasions. Bullshit. Its because the CEOs who are already making millions, want to make millions more. That's it. Greed. Plain and simple. They are sacrificing the stability of this country for their own personal greed. These animals are worse than traitors.