Whatever text we adopted will need to be approved, anyhow, but do you want
to add anything to the effect that the Apache Software Foundation develops
software based upon Open Standards and promotes inter-operability, both of
which would be threatened by software patents, and therefore the ASF is
taking its position based upon the firm belief that Internet technology must
remain open and unencumbered?
The irony is that the patent system was put into place to protect small
inventors from powerful players, and to ensure that they would receive a
fair economic reward. Instead it as evolved into a system where the largest
players develop huge patent portfolios to use as leverage against their
peers, and the smaller players are kept out of the system by the economics
involved in the patent process.
We see enough of that already here in the USA.
--- Noel
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