but now what? Everyone in the FOSS community believes that software patents are essentially bad. But, as usual, there are many different ideas on how to deal with them. The spectrum ranges from the FSF position of eliminating them entirely on one side, to the middle ground of fighting them one-by-one, to the other side of building a FOSS patent portfolio which implies accepting the status quo.

I think it would be informative for the luminaries in the FOSS community to establish a position on software patents. As Groklaw has shown, there are many non-developers who want to participate and getting involved on the legal front is one excellent way of doing this. If these folks knew who they could call on to testify in various forums, they could work on getting a voice in many forums. Just like you guys did in the EU trial, the FOSS community needs to stand on its own two feet in the battle against software patents.

Later . . . Jim

RenaissanceCore IDS, check it out at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/renaissancecore