Forgot that bit - again, they're not describing the rules that they use (which is the whole idea of a patent - you publish what would otherwise be your trade secrets and in exchange you get government protection against anyone copying them without paying you for a small amount of time), they're describing the idea that there could be rules to determine whether you're scrolling, dragging, or flipping apps/tabs.

Big difference.

That's still massively vague and far-reaching. They should be able to patent the specific heuristics themselves. They should not be able to patent the idea of using heuristics to figure out what to do.

Its like patenting the cotton gin as follows:

Without specifics, they're still describing the idea of a rubber-band display. You could build one using all of your own formulae for behavior and appearance, and you'd still be in violation of their patent.

That swap is rarely going to make either side happy.

How many people, right now, are violating Facebook or Zynga patents by taking advantage of their massive design and usability budgets and just solving problems the same way that they solved them, a week later?

It works both ways, you know, and I'd propose that there are far more people in the 2nd camp than there are in the 1st.

The big problem with "software patents" (and yes, I've got 'em too) is that they're too conceptual. A patent was supposed to be a complete description for how to perform an action. These days you can effectively get patents on the actions themselves - as if instead of patenting a superior type of cotton gin, you could actually patent the idea that a machine could separate cotton fibers from seeds. You don't even need to build such a machine, just to posit that it could exist and might be built with metal bits. That, IMO, is far worse even than letting existing works be patented by adding "... on a computer" to their titles. Far worse.

Should you be able to patent, for example, the idea of a compression algorithm that works by finding commonly repeated arrays and referencing them, rather than a specific implementation thereof? I submit that you should not.

Actually, its illegal to do that if you're paying him more than $600/yr and you don't get a W-9 from them and file a 1099 to the IRS stating that you've paid someone with that SSN/EIN that amount. The easy workaround is that if they say (rightly or wrongly) that they're representing an incorporated company (even a sole-proprietor can incorporate) then you don't have to do any of that.

This holds true whether you're paying them in cash, checks, used cars, whatever. It doesn't cost you a dime, but it does allow the IRS to follow up and make sure that they're declaring their income accurately.

Not quite true, since you're paying payroll taxes regardless and just not anything for "federal income tax withholding". However, since payroll taxes are a 16% proportional tax on your income, its a little unfair to characterize them as escaping all income taxes, especially in the context of social security and medical benefits, which are taxed regardless even in the "0%" bracket.

Worse. Let's say that you accept Bitcoin payment years from now and it turns out that that money was part of the MtGox heist. Congratulations, you've now received stolen property, which in many jurisdictions means that it may be taken away from you at any moment, all quite legally.

The value of a currency is often predicated on having enough of a market in which to spend it.

The US government backs the USD in two important ways; the first, though FDIC et al, by ensuring that there are safe places to store your USD while you're not using them. As we can see, that's not an insignificant benefit.

The second is by guaranteeing that you'll be able to use those USD to pay all of your public debts - taxes, fees, permits, &c. That automatically grants a critical mass as far as having places to spend USD, which means that other people will accept the currency, which then snowballs until you have an effectively universal acceptance rate.

Currently, no Bitcoin backers offer anything close to either of those two benefits.

Double-whoosh. A reigning monarch reins in when it rains.

Oh really? How's that been working out for you so far? How many - even of that self-selected few - actually compile their mobile OS from hand-verified source, pray tell?

Actually, while its had for people to grasp a market of a billion people, its even more staggeringly harder to grasp the idea of a non-market of 3.5 billion people.

Keep in mind that the median worldwide household income is under $10K/yr...

If this really can work for ~3.5 billion people who currently don't have a decent mobile OS (a claim about which I remain skeptical), I guarantee you that at least 3.49 billion of them won't give a damn whether its FOSS or not. Of the remainder, most surely won't care whether its GPL, BSD, or PirateBay licensed.

How 'bout a beefy UPS? That allows the simple "continuous power" scenarios to be considered again, and is far cheaper than staffing a desk.