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Software patents are dangerous to software developers because they impose monopolies on software ideas.

Our strategy in dealing with patents in Mono is the same strategy that any other software developer would take. In the event of a patent claim, we will try to find prior art to the claim of the patent.

Every piece of software written today is likely going to infringe on someone else's patent.

I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions.

Software patents, in particular, are very ripe for abuse. The whole system encourages big corporations getting thousands and thousands of patents. Individuals almost never get them.

In the early days of the software industry, people cared about copyright and didn't give a damn about patents - they copied each other willy-nilly.

After releasing Mono 1.0, we started work on a new edition of Mono that will be released later in the year.

Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.

We're not going to make Evolution or any of our other products depend on Mono anytime in the near future.

Patent monopoly creates a lot of problems. It allows the patentee to charge the maximum to consumers. This may not be a problem if the patented product is a luxury item, like parts that go into a smartphone, but can violate basic human rights if it involves things such as life-saving drugs.