Reality: software patents are never free, can be taken out on just about
any permutaion of ideas, and are (in general) unknowable.
Most software patents wouldn't stand up in court, but because the
non-patent holder has to prove innocence (at least in the States), it's
the threat of litigation under patent law that is the biggest problem,
not anything else.
What the free software community needs isn't so much a way of "buying
into" some kind of partial rights to software patents, but a horde of
people finding prior art, to defend free software.
[I'm remembering how Don Lancaster beat a patent on a color organ by
finding prior art -- from the 16th century. Seems to me that it's
probable that we could find prior art on a lot of algorithmic patents
if we broaden our search far enough. That said, I haven't had much time
to pursue this kind of research.]
-- Raul- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/