[Opensim-dev] personal plea on patents

[Robert A. Knop Jr.]

On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 12:23:40PM -0700, Frank Nichols wrote:
> It's too late for that - and as someone pointed out, intentionally  
> breaching a patent qualifies for triple damages. Attempts to "code fast"  
> before the patent is issued would be interpreted as exactly that.

I don't think that's what Diva is talking about.  Code fast to get
implementations of as many ideas as possible out *before* somebody
submits a patent for them.  To my knowledge, there aren't pending
patents right now that anybody needs to "post-generate prior art" for or
any such.

Also, the original context of her "code fast" wasn't "get ideas
implemented before people start patenting them", but was advice to
companies who want to get ahead in VWs.  Instead of patenting every damn
fool idea you can come up with, actually implement stuff and grab market
share by having implemented it-- that's what she was really saying.

Ultimately, we need to kill software patents for once and for all.
Alas, chances of that happening soon are slim, so everybody has to be
aware of the existence of them.

-- 
--Rob Knop
  E-mail:    rknop at pobox.com
  Home Page: http://www.pobox.com/~rknop/
  Blog:      http://www.sonic.net/~rknop/blog/
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