Re: [tlug] Nice reply by Torvalds

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:

 > I don't think it's a very good reply. It completely ducks the issue
 > of how to get rid of this whole FUD factor in the first place,
 > which is probably the second major reason MS is doing this.

You *can't* get rid of the FUD factor, with patent law as it currently
exists.  And if you could, patents would be a shoo-in, and we'd never
get rid of them.  The point is that the only hope for getting Congress
(and other legislatures; eg, I don't think Europe is anywhere near as
safe as Godwin seems to) to do something about them is to show that
the transactions costs (mostly search costs) way outweigh the benefits
to the innnovations.

 > (The first reason would be the hope that they actually could kill
 > free software on patent issues, which I think is probably not
 > likely, but would be a true disaster if they managed it.)

Now that might be enough to get Congress to do something about it.