Blackmoor Vituperative

Controversy has erupted over an initiative by the Open Source Development Labs, known as Open Source as Prior Art, which is designed to improve the quality of software patents and thereby reduce the number of patents that can be used to threaten open-source software developers and users.

The goal of OSAPA is to reduce the number of poor-quality patents that are issued by increasing accessibility to open-source software code and documentation that can be used as prior art during the patent examination process.

(from eWeek, OSDL Patent Project Under Attack)

At the root of it, Stallman objects to this because it implicitly legitimizes software patents and will probably undermine any effort to get rid of them entirely. I can’t say that I disagree with him, in principle, but in reality I think the elimination of software patents is as likely as the election of a libertarian President. Yes, it would be good for practically everyone, and a huge improvement over what we have now, but people are too greedy and short-sighted to ever let it happen. So I think OSDL’s project will do more good than harm.

But I still vote libertarian.