[Patents] Threats to developers

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

> Additionally, other than the occasionally article about a silly software
> patent being asserted, for the most part, the software industry magazines
> and newspapers spend little to no time covering software patents.  Unless
> you can quantify this stifling and suffering, how can you assert it?

Already responded:
I feel it frequently, when I have to work around some patented algorithm
which authors of free software didn't dare to implement.
The authors of Freetype, KDE and other systems are afraid of some patent
guy coming up and threatening them, and service companies are afraid of
signing contractual obligations to guarantee that there is no interest of
third parties involved in the solutions they are offering.

I say many things without being able to provide statistical data.  Don't
you?
  
> An individual programmer has little to nothing to fear about software
> patents.  It is only when a company has a software product profitable
> enough to attract patent lawsuits do they have anything to worry about,

Wrong.  Individual programmers do shy away from patent threats and quite a
few have been attacked.

Even if KDE, Freetype, VirtualDub and other systems don't generate money 
themselves, they do take money out of some proprietary software. This is 
reason enough to threaten the developpers with lawsuits.  Even if the
developpers aren't actually taken to court, being forced to throw away
your efforts and not being able to comply with de-facto standards is
painful enough.

-phm