Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 15th Feb 2012 23:40 UTC
"We learned on January 31 that Barnes & Noble had suffered a major setback in a patent-infringement lawsuit filed against the company by Microsoft. That day, an administrative law judge at the International Trade Commission had tossed out the company's key defense, that Microsoft was engaging in 'patent misuse' as part of a larger scheme to 'kill Android'. Today the full opinion has been made public." Microsoft's protection racket might be legal, but that doesn't make it moral. It's based on software patents, and is thus, by definition, morally reprehensible and sleazy.
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Member since:
2012-02-20
>> "It's based on software patents, and is thus, by definition, morally reprehensible and sleazy."
OMG, are we still in the Dark Ages about SW patents?
I'll tell you what's morally reprehensible. What's morally reprehensible is sitting on your keyster while someone else incurs all the R&D expenses, then you get off the couch, stroll in, and start copying his/her work with a breezy claim of "Your patent is immoral." What's also reprehensible is making bold claims about the delicate philosophical underpinnings of I.P. law without any backup. On someone's bandwagon, are you?
I'll grant you, some of the "business method" patents are pretty lame. But a patentless system? Much worse.
Permit me a guess? You read the hackneyed old article "Against Software Patents" by MIT's League for Programming Freedom, and the thrill of revolutionary fervor overwhelmed you as a way to impress folks at parties.