Often I get phone calls, emails or other correspondence that begins. “We have this great patent pending idea and we want to use open source”. Hopefully I will take some time and write more about why software patents are a particular problem with medical software, but for now I am satisfied to link to a good summary article on why the Free and Open Source community generally has a problem with patents. If you feel like contacting me about using FOSS with your company and your company has patents, reading this first will save us some time.
-FT