End Software Patents Project Comes Out Swinging

Linux.com is reporting that the End Software Patents project is launching several new initiatives to help drive support for their cause. Among the new methods are a web site, a report on the state of patents in the US, and a scholarship contest promising to award $10,000 "for the best paper on the effects of the patentability of software and business methods under US law." "The project is being launched with initial funding of a quarter million dollars, supplied primarily by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Under the directorship of Ben Klemens, a long-time advocate of software patent abolition best-known for the book Math You Can't Use: Patents, Copyright, and Software, the project is being supported by the FSF, the Public Patent Foundation, and the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). One of ESP's goals is to enlist support from academics, software developers, legal experts, and business executives. Its initial supporters show that the project is already well on its way to building such a coalition."

Comments

I call bullshit.

[MBC1977]

So let me get this straight... some of you actually believe that one should not be able to patent software after

1) spending an inordinate amount of time learning how to design, develop (to include programming), test software.
2) spending (nowdays) insane amounts of money to go to a good university (unless you happen to be there on scholarship, where you are spending an insane amount of someone else's money.

Just because you think that it is an idea somebody EVENTUALLY would have come up with? Or the tired arguement that structures and or algorithms involved are prior art?

Does that even make sense, logically? Altruism, while nice I'm sure, along with sharing is caring and all that other happy-happy nonsense, does not pay the bills, put food on the table, or even cover the gas in one's car at the end of the day. When you have individuals who feel they should get something for free, (I'm sorry you feel you should have the choice of free -- which its not (see item 1)) then you need a patent to say no... no I worked too dammed hard just to have the value (real or percieved) pissed away because somebody can't afford it so they want it for free.

Not trying to sound mean or cruel, but honestly that is a lot of time and money loss just to say, you can't patent it because others need to be able to copy it. Bullshit. Nothing is free but air and water (and even that is not free). (And no beer is not free, somebody had to pay for it.)