Patent hit - MS goes after Linux - FreeBSD ?

[Mikel King]

On Aug 3, 2012, at 12:42 PM, kpneal at pobox.com wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 03, 2012 at 04:09:06PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
>>> Unless Congress
>>> pulls a Mickey Mouse Protection Act-lookalike on patents by extending
>>> them just as they did with Copyright.
>>> 
>> 
>> then it will still hit USA users only. FreeBSD master site can simply be 
>> moved.
> 
> If we're talking about patent infringement then moving FreeBSD outside of
> the country does zero to protect users of FreeBSD. Every single one of
> them that uses a part of FreeBSD that a patent holder claims infringes on
> a patent is vulnerable to a lawsuit.
> 
> Also, if you pay attention to the news then you see in the DMCA, ACTA, the
> TPP, and other examples that the US is trying to get the rest of the world
> to adopt its views. The weird thinking that people in government have is
> that the solution to a bad law that affects only the US is to get other
> countries to adopt the same bad law so as to hurt everyone everywhere.
> 
> But, at the end of the day I think FreeBSD should worry about patent
> infringement the way people worry about dying in a car wreck: Use a
> reasonable amount of care to avoid it, and then don't worry about it.
> 
> -- 
> Kevin P. Neal                                http://www.pobox.com/~kpn/


Out of curiosity has anyone ever heard of trolls patenting open source technologies after the fact?