By the way, I just saw this story hit Slashdot: http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/05/19/1518200/software-patents-good-for-op... Good discussion there (out of a pretty lousy summary). I noticed that Ben Sturmfels commented too. Best comment was this<http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2861507&cid=40054149> : It is as if someone is trying to create the impression there is an ongoing
'debate' about about the pros and cons of software patents. There is no debate. Software patents are harmful nonsense. and this is the general consensus amoung [sic] people who write software (supposedly the people that these patents 'protect'). I'm sure you could scrape up some guy who swears blind that smoking cured his sinus problems but that doesn't mean an article 'Smoking - good for your health?' should hit the front page.