[Patents] Re: World Intellectual Property Day is April 26, 2001

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

Hello Mr Smith,

> However, now that I have been addressed in the vulgar terms of your
> email, I do have a reason to not disclose my last name:  personal
> physical safety.

Why then didn't you remove your vita from

        http://www.softwarelaw.com/Webmaster/webmaster.htm
        http://www.softwarelaw.com/Webmaster/vitae.htm

?

It seems that your whole website is working very much with provocation as
a tool for raising its exposure.  Statements like

        free software = socialism
        the patent system will send free software to the dustbin of history
        software patents help software innovation
        free software developpers are a bunch of terrorists who threaten
                Michael Smith's physical safety

etc
all seem well fit to achieve this aim.
No reason for anyone to feel particularly angry.
There is a great temptation for people to jump up and play this kind of
role.  There are other patent lawyers, such as Mr. Breese, Mr. Betten,
Mr. Hoessle, Mr. Pfeiffer etc who do the same, and also compete in saying
bad things about free software.  This shows imho that the patent movement
is plagued by an internal process of negative selections which brings
less-than-averagely intelligent people to the forefront and makes them
leaders of the movement.  Another cause for you, not for us, to be
concerned.

Freedom of the written word is the very cause we are fighting for.
This includes freedom of you to present your case on softwarelaw.com.
I sincerely wish that you do a good job at presenting it.  Any
well-crafted presentation is part of a dialectic process that helps
truth come out, may it be intended or not.
Freedom of the written word in programing languages is just as crucial for
the underpinnings of information society as is freedom of opinion, and it
is under threat by the system on which your business model is based.

If the people on the mailing lists find it interesting, there will always
be people willing to bring light into some of the well-known
misunderstandings, which lie at the heart of much of this.

-phm