The fight against software patents is one of the most important topics for data travelers these days. The whole situation is horrifying as a sprawling culture (programming) will be killed for no reason (except keeping the money at the big companies). One of the big problems in this context is to explain why this is such a big mistake to non-programmers.

Then this article came along: What if patents applied to literature? on the must-read kuro5hin.org story system. The comparison of programming and literature is so valid that most of us may have overlooked how obvious this is:

„Now imagine a literary world restricted by patents. A patent protects not just the work itself, but the idea behind the work.“

Programmers and writers share similar skills. One time, they might face similar problems.