[Patents] Short article on silicon.com

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

> Linux group lashes out at EU software patents 
> 
> http://www.silicon.com/public/door?REQUNIQ=965489614&6004REQEVENT=&REQINT1=38943
> 
> Contains statements from the EC like ``We are treading very carefully, so 
> that
> we get the right balance between the interests of developers who need
> incentives, and small users who would possibly have to pay for this.'' This 
> is
> of course nonsense: as demonstrated in 
> 
> http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference/economy.html
> 
> software patents benefit only big corporations and patent funds, and stiffle
> innovation.

What the EC people want to say is that "there need to be incentives for
developping proprietary software, but some of the free software saints
think that just because they can live on air, this world must offer room
only for saints."

They don't say it so bluntly, but they do propagate the implicit fallacy
of the patent lawyers' mythology, on which Breese's propaganda operates:  
that there is a lack of incentives, and there is only a choice between
patents or nothing, copyright being "too weak" (or, even better, not
mentioned because the listeners know so little, that, after listening for
a while they will confuse "the patent system" with "the existing software
incentive system").

-phm