The discourse around HN is generally of a pretty high level, and it's disappointing to see people just blindly accepting the party line: software patents bad, I don't know how to read a patent and that's ok, and anyone who disagrees is just stifling innovation.
Yes, I agree. The people here are generally very intelligent.
>it's disappointing to see people just blindly accepting the party line: software patents bad
...Have you considered that they've applied this intelligence to the topic? They've all come to the same conclusion because it is the most logical one? I wouldn't be so quick to jump to "everybody is stupid because they don't agree with me" on this. Maybe you're the one who is wrong about it.
Stuff like that does not fill me with humility and make me think, hey, maybe these folks are right and I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about. Because I do know what I'm talking about. There are defensible arguments for why software patents may not be a good thing... but you don't see them here. You don't often see anything well-reasoned, just a bunch of groupthink.
What makes you more qualified to comment on them than anybody else? Do you work in patent law?
If so, how does that qualify you to speak to their implications in the software world (since that is where people have a problem with them; not the wording, or the format, or the location of the building, just the effect on the community).
Yes. As for the effect on the community... well, are you just talking about the way that patents make software developers feel? Because obviously developers would know more about that than I do. But it's also not a particularly relevant question--patents are what they are, and the way they make you feel doesn't really matter.
No, I (and I think I speak for the majority of people against overly-broad software patents) am against the effects of those patents.
>the way they make you feel doesn't really matter.
This is absolutely untrue. People being upset about this stuff is how it gets changed.