Software Patents - What will it do to open source
 

What would software patents have done to Open source

1. Exactly what is a software patent?
2. Would it have killed open source, I've heard somewhere it would, is that true?
3. If software patents did not shut down open source then What would have been its effect on open source?

A patent on a particular piece of software, or an algorithm used in that software usually. Lasts for 20 years and if you get enough patents together (eg. if Microsoft were to patent everything to do with graphical computer operating systems as they are tring to do) you would effectively have a government granted monopoly in your market.

If they were all enforced then yes. The thing is that the big IT companies are in a sort of mutually assured destruction situation ATM with each big company hording patents to defend against the others. So if Microsoft sued IBM for infringements of their patents a, b and c IBM would counter-sue for infringements of their patents x, y and z. Any change in this balance could be disastorous for open source and patents have already lead to problems, the most obvious example being the stripping of software components which play MP3s, read NTFS partitions and play DVDs from some distributions, esp. those based in the US. All these distros have packages that add this functionality back in easily though.

Far more severe restrictions along the lines of those listed above, to the point where the open source software would be next to useless.

For more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent_debate (read the links at the bottom especially)
http://webshop.ffii.org/ (example of why sw patents are bad for business)
http://www.patents4innovation.org/ (pro-sw patents, claim they encourage inovation. I think this is bullshit but I've included it for some balance)

so if it did go through every linux user would have been screwed and would be forced back to a proprietary one like windows or the mac OS.

That's a worst case scenario. But remember that software patents have been allowed in the US for the last 10 years or so but haven't really been used to the extent that they seriously damage open source. This is mainly because of the above-mentioned mutually assured lawsuits effect from big companies with an interest in open source software like Linux.

At the moment a full-on assault by Microsoft etc. using software patents to completely ban open source probably isn't very likely because of the storm of controversy and counter-suits it would generate. What they are trying to do is subtly use the fear of such an attack to discourage people from using open source by using their marketing to cast doubt in people's minds about the safety of using software they could be sued for using. Its classic FUD of course since Microsoft's software would infringe just as many, if not more, patents as the equivalent open source implementation, also microsoft has been successfuly sued for patent infringement in the past (eg. Eolas web-browser plugin patent).

Moved: This thread is more suitable in General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

even in a worst case scenario, people will still develop and use open source software, i know a lot of people use illegal copies of proprietary software, so whats the big deal with using open source software, sure, even if m$ is able to kill all the servers that distribute the software, theres still going to be software passed around the old fashioned way using CD/DVD/floppy/USB-storage/etc .... theres no way short of a Inquisition that they can get rid of, or even stop people from making/using open source software.

But how are we to know that companys like M$ have patent violations if their source code is secret? If there was a way to find out then I'm sure M$ would not touch the subject of shutting down open source for the exact reason you said-they would be sued as well. It just seems to me that because source code is available to anyone M$ has the upper hand in the matter and would go right through showing all of the violations, atleast I'm guessing you would need source code that is.

You need sourcecode more to prove a copyright infringement. For a patent you need only show the offending product in action to see that it violates a patent.
Eg. the amazon 1-click shopping patent. You don't need access to the perl/python/asp/whatever scripts behind someone's website to see that it would violate this payment. You don't even need to view the HTML/CSS/Javascript code that makes up the page.