In America, Not All Hope is Lost

According to the Inquirer, a subcommittee will decide reduce legal wrangles associated with patents. What exactly does the problem involve? According to the article:

The chief problem is that many damages awards bear little relation to the actual worth of the patent compared to all of the other elements which make up the total end product.

The danger is that if the Congressional subcommittee doesn't make a decision soon, the potential law will go onto the backburner after July 4th elections.

Let's ask ourselves, what is the worth of 'damages' incurred by using sudo? I swear I have seen patents which involve threaded viewing of messages in an E-mail client and even *gasp* the linked list. USPTO has gone completely out of hand.

We Support the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (EU)

For those who do not know, FFII is very much alive and its activity is very important at this stage of saber rattling against Free software. Please show your support to them in any way possible. From their Web site:

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to establishing a free market in information technology, by the removal of barriers to competition. The FFII was largely responsible for the rejection of the EU software patent directive in July 2005, working closely with the European Parliament and many partners from industry and civil society. CNET awarded the FFII the Outstanding contribution to software development award for this work, which was the result of years of research, policy, and action. Today we continue to defend your right to a free and competitive software market by working towards sane patent systems and open standards.

Advocate sanity. Base judgment on logic, not greed.