I am in favor of opposing software patents (they aren not working out great
in the USA), but we should not disadvantage our users. If we post anything,
as we did regarding the JCP, it should not prevent our users from easily
using the site. People count on the ASF, and while we may want them to
focus on a problem with great potential for damage, we do not not want to
inspire ill-will because someone could not access something they needed from
our site in a timely manner.
This issue has been around for years. Until something spectacularly bad
happens, there will not be a popular uprising, but I cynically do not
believe that the protest will have a great effect.
My prediction is that what will happen is that companies like Microsoft will
use patents and protocol copyright (copyrighting the wire level protocols)
to attack Open Source software, since they are gradually losing on most
other fronts. Microsoft has already turned a Court mandate that they open
their protocols into a licensing scheme to control a wide range of wire
level protocols.
The infrastructure must remain open and unencumbered, but it seems that the
only solution seems to be employing the same weapon. The IETF and other
standards bodies should take out copyright and patent protection on the open
standards, and use those as leverage in the same way that the big companies
use their patent portfolio. Perhaps Roy should have filed a patent on REST.
--- Noel
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