Software Patents Good For Open Source?

Posted by Unknown on Saturday May 19, 2012 @09:56AM from the they-say-it-like-it's-a-bad-thing dept.

schliz writes "The Australian software patent system could be used by open source developers to ensure their inventions remain available to the community, a conference organized by intellectual property authority IP Australia heard this week According to Australian inventor Ric Richardson, whose company came out on top of a multi-million dollar settlement with Microsoft in March, a world without software patents would be 'open slather for anybody who can just go faster than the next person.' Software developer Ben Sturmfels, whose 2010 anti-software-patent petition won the support of open source community members such as Jonathan Oxer, Andrew Tridgell, and software freedom activist Richard Stallman, disagreed."

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Re:Flood the market by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-19 10:02 · Score: 5, Funny

Fairly sure patent applications cost money, so this point is a bit mute.
Yep, it leaves me speechless.
Re:"disagreed" link by NormalVisual · 2012-05-19 11:03 · Score: 4, Funny

A sort of 'appeal to authority by association'.

Or alliteration.

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