Linux isn’t a patentable thing. It’s not one idea or even really a new one. I agree with your premise though. Patents, in nearly all cases, suck.
Linux isn’t a patentable thing.
Yes, that’s been true so far. Are you sure it’s true under the newly proposed law?
What would you patent? “A program which handles low level functionality and manages other programs?” I suppose what I mean is that there is “prior art”. You can’t patent something if it isn’t new and the concept of Linux isn’t. Linux isn’t the first kernel. This law wouldn’t change that. The first person to create a kernel though, under this law that might perhaps (?) have been patentable. Which would’ve crippled the entire software industry in it’s infancy. Yay patents!
Patents have been an issue for Linux before. For example, memory deduplication (KSM) was delayed and modified to avoid a patent on using hashes for this purpose, resulting in a potentially inferior implementation due to patents.
