The SCO case (Darl McBride) was not setteled. It never will be. It is on hold, after Novell sued and proved that SCO didn't hold the UNIX copyrights. SCO then went bankrupt, but are trying to open specific claims against IBM.

SCO will fail, probably because the judge will disagree on allowing SCO to attack without IBM being able to defend. Even if the are allowed to proceed, they will fail, as their claims have no merit whatsoever.
It is trup SCO hoped for a settlement or buyout, but IBM never bent to their empty threats.

>Don't be so hard on yourself. With tens of thousands of security cameras across your cities,
That is mostly the brits. But I grant you the point.

> rampant hoplophobia,
With a murder rate less than a 6th of that rate in gun loving USA, I consider this wise.

>courts that favor criminals over anyone even thinking of defending themselves,
You lost me here. Self defense is legal. Courts are tough on crime (at least where I live). Corruption is almost nill, Last I heard it was in the us a burglar could sue the owner of the house he broke in to if he broke his leg during the heist. And win.

- soon to be followed requests to report by child abuse, drug trade, piracy, and general critique of the EU and government.
We are slowly learning from the US laws.

> So instead of simply paying a fee on everything, and then hand out the money to companies and people who have published very good designs and/or research

Are you proposing an alternative involving fees to all products and the fees returned to the deserving? Interesting concept, but more details are needed in order to evaluate.

> you honestly think it's a good idea to go medieval and hand out state enforced monopolies

Nothing new. Patents are old man. SW patent are a never abomination that should never had been allowed. I agree that patents as a whole kill innovation, but unless some sort of protection was in place (patent, your fee/award system or whatever) some expensive R&D would completely stop (unless it was state sponsored).

Yeah, but drugs are not protected by copyright. It is relatively easy to coyp pill and sell at lover price. In software, the competition will have to spend a similar amount of $$ and TIME as you to make a competing product. Tame you could spend fortifying your base and improving the product.

But never mind, we obviously both agree that SW should not be covered by patents. It seems that some SW execs do not agree with us. I guess they would rather fight a known evil (trolls) than a unknown (a free, competitive market).

> What is the purpose of patents? To provide a temporary monopoly on an idea

As a reward for fully disclosing how the idea/tech works so society at whole may benefit freely after your patent expired.

Don't want other to use your idea freely? Just keep the good stuff a business secret and you can keep on milking the market until someone else figures out what you did and replicate it.

> Why reward just this one aspect?

If any awarding is needed, this is the one aspect to award. It gives individuals or companies some sort of hope that R&D investments may be covered. I would not invest 10 years and a billion to have a anti-dementia drug developed and approved, just to have some competitor copy the chemical formula of the pill days after release and selling 100% replicas for a lower cost within a month.

The problem is that reverse engineering is so easy today, that a patent is the only protection unless you really control access to the tech (e.g. tech is not present in the product you sell but only used in the manufacturing process).

Software should not be patentable for exactly the same reason. If I develop a program that does something nice, new and shiny, it would take the competition a long time to release a competing program, because they would have to make theirs from scratch. Mine is protected by (c). By the time the release their try I would already (if I were any smart) be releasing version 2 or 3 of my stuff.

Not all. While I agree that patents on software (and business processes) are plain silly, I think that patents should be allowed on medicine and machinery (sans software). It costs billions and take years to develop drugs and you should be granted protection. It costs a lot to develop a new efficient engine or display technology
But do not try to patent genes or *potential method of curing x*. Do not try to patent a medication that was previously patented, because you just discovered that it also can cure something else. Discovering a new use for something already developed gives you the right to brag, write articles, gain a nobel. Not a patent.

Ant or not? If is is locked down 100% and I only can run Amazon approved apps (like Silk), no thanks. If it is open to a reasonable degree and I can install the apps I want: yes.
But being from a Non-US country, I don't even have the choice.
I know better than to blame Amazon (entirely) - their whole concept is based on media, and they do not have license agreements in place globally. As they are selling at cost (or even a few $ loss) pr. device, I can understand they don't wan't be to buy until they can get their costs covered somehow.

"Disclosure: I am one of the researchers who worked on this."
Disclosure is an interesting word here. I would have used the word "brag" - and I think you are fully entitled to brag about that feat.

Please go somewhere else with your propaganda, exaggerations and lies. First of all, I am from Europe, so I suppose I am no so disadvantaged on other nations and cultures. A lot of people (in Europe at least) really feel sorry for the people living under some of the middle eastern oppressive regimes.

I would like to see more democracies in the middle East. You choose your form of representation. I don not advocate you choose the US system, which I consider broken. Only two parties limits real choice, and the way seats are granted in states limits real fairness. Look at other models - many reasonable multi party systems models exist in Europe. Ohh, and do NOT allow lobbyism.

By having the right model (and no lobbyists) you can prevent the coorporate world to gain too much power, and with the right parties, you even get to regulate their behavior.

As for your Axis of evil countries are without central banks, conspiracy theory: All countries that Bush named "The Axis if Evil" (Iran, Iran, North Korea) have central banks and have had that for decades. Iran wast the last country to get one, in 1964.

In the last paragraph you write "Tread slowly but surely". I agree here somewhat, but the rest of the paragraph, I interpret as: "Do not tread YET. Wait patiently like a good boy, while your current government government continue to sell your countries rices and keep the wealth for themselves (in foreign bank accounts)."