“Richard Stallman’s presentation today at The Bazaar, an open
source conference being held in New York City, included a call to
steer clear of Amazon.com, at least when it comes to sending
revenue their way. Will the boycott call mean no presents under
Jeff Bezos’ tree? Probably not. Still, the lump of coal Stallman
dished up didn’t just have Amazon’s name on it. Here’s what
Stallman had to say about the evils wrought by patents in the
software industry.”
“Software patents are among the biggest dangers to our
community. Software patents are dangerous even to the software
privateers, the ones who try to privatize software by making it
non-free. The thing is that programs are very complicated, big
things, and that means there’s lots of stuff in them that could
infringe somebody else’s patent. Developing a big program is like
crossing a minefield: with each step, you may step on a patent that
will blow up and destroy your whole project. Considering how many
steps you have to take to get across, the chances of getting
through unscathed are pretty slim.”