FOR The sake of balance in our "Week Against Software Patents", the non-engineering side is presented here too. It's mostly lawyers. Seeing how weak their arguments really are may help appreciate the seriousness of this whole situation. Developers are being screwed and even the screw is patented.
As we already know, the Microsoft crowd and the company's patent lawyers love software patents (the video below is from the Ignite conference in Seattle). It helps them make money. Here is the first video in support of software patents (Ogg only on purpose), courtesy of patent lawyers: 3.1KNotice the language. Ouch. He also daemonises GNU, uses the word "stealing", berates Wikileaks, etc. For a Seattle crowd (near Microsoft) it might be appropriate. Some years ago we saw South African patent law being distorted by Microsoft and here is another self-professed "IP guru" (Johnny Fiandero) explaining "Why Software Patents are so Controversial". Watch and see what's wrong with the arguments he makes: 3.1K
Criticism of his points would be easy. He makes no compelling arguments, except the mentioning of his "clients". Here is how Microsoft uses software patents for anti-competitive purposes. 3.1K
Here is some more advocacy of patents over copyrights (it gets boring towards the end). 3.1K
Credit: TinyOgg Here ends our special video coverage (lasting about a week). Be sure to explain to people why software patents need to be fought against. They hurt all users, not just developers, and among those developers who are hurt there are both free/libre and proprietary software developers. The outrageous patent laws do not make a distinction. The inclusion of software patents in US law is very arcane, out of touch with reality, and it makes as much sense as prohibition of driving and voting for women. The only profession (not company) which benefits from this involves litigation. ââË