Comment This is *not* about everchanging proprietary APIs (Score 1) 397
It looks like Microsoft has achieved something that dogs have unsuccessfully been trying to do for centuries: it bit its own tail!
Now this is the cue for anti-patent people to start listing a litany of cases where patents didn't protect some little guy. But that doesn't change the millions of cases where it does, that doesn't get the publicity.
Then please just tell us about one of those cases where patents did protect some little guy.
k007
Er.. no. Patents are good. The fact that Bell was able to patent his invention means that (1) he was able to profit from it, and (2) his invention was fully disclosed and available to the rest of humanity.
Yes, patents are good for 'inventors' like Bell but bad for real inventors like Meuci who couldn't afford them.
k007
An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says 'Beam me up, Scotty'.