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.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
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.
Now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious burden on the creative process.
Every piece of software written today is likely going to infringe on someone else's patent.
The software patent problem is not limited to Mono. Software patents affect everyone writing software today.
It's hard to see how the Copyright Office can rise to the many challenges of the 21st-century work that you do without dramatically more independence and dramatically more flexibility.
People equate patents with secrecy, that secrecy is what patents were designed to overcome. That's why the formula for Coca-Cola was never patented. They kept it as a trade secret, and they've outlasted patent laws by 80 years or more.
Big Tech's nonchalance about copyright violation tramples over people like my wife and me, who strive to make a living in the great tradition of the creative realm.
Software patents are dangerous to software developers because they impose monopolies on software ideas.
The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.
People have to respect intellectual property.