[Patents] Patent system run for consumers or producers?

[Martin Wahlén mva@df.lth.se]

On Sun, 8 Oct 2000, Gregory Aharonian wrote:

> >... I can't see how anyone could seriously attempt to negate the
> >... suffering that software users are undergoing.
> 
> People with AIDS suffer.
> People in poverty suffer.
> People in warzones suffer.
> People discriminated against suffer.
> 
> Because of (bad) software patents, software users are at best
> inconvenienced.  But suffer?  Homeless people suffer.  Not software

Yes, but software authors suffer (legal problems). Since in the free
software world users often are authors this means that (some) software
users suffer. I would urge you to read some of Richard Stallmans
writings, if you haven't.

And in this context I would like to ask you what a (bad) software patent
is, and what differentiates it from a good one? 

Martin