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Comment by bhiggins | Hacker News Reader

There were some folks who owned a lot of slaves back in the day, too. Not a good argument, by itself, sorry.

not really a fair comparison. Obviously in the case of slavery most people would believe that matters of economic stability play second fiddle to the overarching concerns of Justice and Morality. However, as evil as you may think software patents are, they are not on the same level.

The USPTO should consider economic ramifications of a decision to stop issuing software patents, or to invalidate patents. I'm not saying they should not go ahead and do it, but it would be irresponsible not to consider any potential negative effects.

"Obviously in the case of slavery most people would believe that matters of economic stability play second fiddle" -- It wasn't obvious when slavery was legal.

True, that was mostly certainly historical relativism on my part. Maybe in 100 years people will look back on patent lawsuits similarly... but i doubt it

Seriously? This is your argument? Comparing software patents to slavery trivializes the suffering and evils of slavery.

Perhaps independent developers feel like prisoners (slaves may be too strong a word) where the wardens are software patents. If you ask the FSF, non-Free software is unethical for "enslaving" the knowledge contained in the software (though I think that position goes a bit too far).

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