Ask HN: Why Are Software Patents So Awful?
Short &amp; sweet: Software is just lambda calculus, and the USPTO has already decided math cannot be patented. It is bizarre they would make such a gigantic oversight.<p>Longer and more pedestrian: Computers are a sandbox that we&#x27;ve created ourselves. Programs are just a set of instructions to tell the computer what to do, and every possible thing a computer can do is already known and limited by the sandbox we have designed. To claim that a certain set of instructions causes the computer to do something more novel than any other is nonsense. It&#x27;s all just moving bits around.<p>Down with software patents.