Mint is probably the closest to Kubuntu you'll get.

That's certainly a possibility. I would prefer the occasional unjust (unjust IMHO anyway) outcome that sets nasty men free provided it also allows outcomes that allows good men from having their lives destroyed :)

My final year project for my CS degree was pretty much doing what this patent describes, and it was submitted in 2008, two years ahead of this patent being filed. I even have a conference paper (published with my project supervisor) published in the same year, so there's lots of hard evidence. I also know that there's a few other projects that could claim prior art to this patent, and precedes my own work. I'm pretty sure there's more than enough prior art in the world to blow this out of the water should it be challenged in court. Heck, I'm surprised the USPTO had the gall to allow this one through at all.

IMHO you should change that to just "Do something on the side to improve your skills and experience in the area you want to be in." :)
Even if it's the area you currently work in. If you don't love the thing you're either already working in or want to work in enough to do so, then it's the wrong thing for you.

Don't forget to add in the European laws to that. Even if the UK decided to recognise US patents, developers could still get rulings overturned in European courts.

You're mixing your Gods and throwing in a titan or two by the looks of it... :)

I'm sure they can claim that the IP agreement was just for the W7 app and these new ports are exempt from the agreement. So now they own the IP for your ports and still get 30% from the revenue of the original W7 app. They most likely also charge a 30% fee for the apps listing.

Of course, you could always use the W7 app as a litmus test for popularity and if you then think you can make some real cash, leave you MS job and then write the ports.

A lot of python 2 libs won't have too much trouble running under 3 without modifications.

They do realise that even more Internet services are not even in the US....right? Or does their jurisdiction actually extend to other countries now?