The fundamental problem is the patent system. Yes, it's
unfortunate that Microsoft is involved, but if any other
company were holding the cards, who's to say that wouldn't
be just as bad?
It could potentially be, but that is very very unlikely. I think if we had
RedHat or AOL or Sun or IBM - we would not have had the same problems.
In any case, in any public statements or even statements likely to be
attributed to the "SPF Community", should not not NOT talk about
abolishing software patents, or even how broken the patent system is -
the former will cause people to think we're all raving loonies with an
ax to grind against the system and reduce any credibility, the latter
will at very least simply detract from the primary issue which is
getting an authentication system in place (umm..that *is* our primary
focus, right?)
Anne