xml-dev - Software patent debate: we lose round one

[David Megginson <david@megginson.com>]

Since the U.S. phenomenon of software patents have been a hot topic
around here (for the record, I think they're ludicrous), I'd like to
draw everyone's attention to a recent debate between Tim O'Reilly and
Tod Dickinson, the director of the U.S. patent office:

  http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/patents/2000/05/24/PizzoFiles.html

I'm actually posting this as a cautionary tale, because Tim arrives
unprepared and gets badly whumped in the debate (at least, it looks that
way reading the transcript; it's probably even worse in the RealAudio
version).  If we're going to carry on this debate in any meaningful way,
we're going to have to come much better prepared, and this debate shows
very clearly where we need to collect a lot of good, credible evidence
to back up our claims.


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david@megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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