I agree with your patent statement. If this trend keeps going the way it is, then even the code examples you see in books and online could possibly be a threat. I understand that some developers want to “protect” their ideas, but in the end, it only hampers developement.

This patent mess is also leading to the Microsoft scare scheme. I like how Microsoft tires to cover it up by calling it a “preferred linux distributor” and “helping improve interoperability”. Heh, if Microsoft can’t even have interoperability between Mobile & CE, or even XP & Vista, what makes Xandros, Novell, and Linspire think that they’ll get any real benefit out of this? (other than short-term cash)