[Patents] simple questions

[Roberto Micarelli mi.ro@iol.it]

I would like to ask people who agree with software patents some simple 
questions.

Do you think that IT needed patents to get better?
Don't you think that it was already working well, without patenting 
everything?
People are doing good businesses since at least 20 years with IT, and patents 
are
just one of the most recent issues in this field.
Why to change something which shows to play nice?
Where interests to do that come from?
Where are universities and why costs are so high?
Why is the open source world never taken into account?
Why don't you ask for a zero-cost patenting process, only substained by taxes?
What is the role of little and middle sized companies in european economy?
Always you tell about the needle to protect investment, don't you think that
no-patenting is a good protection too, given the lower development costs and
knowledge-based business it can raise?

As a reference for last question I show an example: open source system are 
public
and available. Their quality is sometime out of discussion. Everybody can 
take it
modify and sell. But only highly specialized people can do that. Everyone who 
aims
to compete a free version of Oracle Parallel Server has to cover a knowledge 
gap
so high, that it will probably give up. This is showing some form of 
protection,
and I still have the chance to develop no free-source systems.
On the other hand it supplies me a lot of benefits, saving me from developing 
all
that I need but just my add-ons, and allowing me to sell it as a whole system 
of mine!

>From this innovative point of view I see patent system a middle-age practice,
highly damaging innovation and inventiveness. Not compatible with the new
connected world that IT people is going to implement.

Regards.