Comment Re:Software patents are profoundly anticompetitive (Score 2, Insightful) 477
Software patents literally make these open source projects illegal
You know, I keep seeing this said over and over again, and I've been letting it go, but I can't anymore
A PATENT DOESN'T MEAN ITS ILLEGAL TO IMPLEMENT IT.
It doesn't mean you can't make it open source.
All a patent does is grant someone a right to exclusive use
Having a patent doesnt do anything by itself, it gives the holder of the patent specific options.
It is not illegal to make an OSS h264 codec, you just simply need the license authority to allow you to do so.
You people really need to get a freaking clue before you go ranting about things you don't understand.
Let me ask you, how many people has the MPEG-LA sued over h264
Whats absolutely ludicrous is how completely ignorant of reality you and the rest of the 'ZOMG PATENT!%!@!@!@' twits are. You know what the biggest problem for patents in OSS is? Ignorant OSS zealots without a clue.
I suppose the fact that Novell, Redhat and Canonical all are patent holders just slipped your fucking mind too right? There are most certainly patented features in the Linux kernel, and it doesn't fucking matter because the patent holders are OK WITH THAT. It actually means that no one else can stop Linux from using those ideas. Patents help OSS too, just like software licensing.
I get that you don't like patents, but what you need to get is a god damn clue about what patents do, how they do it, and why they exist. You clearly don't know any of those 3 things. You're just another one of those people that rant about things they don't understand. Like the twits who rant about software licensing followed up immediately by telling everyone how GPL is gods gift to the world. Pure ignorance and stupidity.