On Tue, 22 Jun 2010, Nick Sabalausky wrote: > Seems a weak reason. A programmer that's worried about infringing software > patents can't write anything more useful than "Hello World". I'm seriously > not convinced at all that it's even possible to write useful code that > doesn't technically infringe on some software patent. As a programmer, > either you accept the fact that what you do is inevitably going to trample > software patents, or you just simply don't be a programmer. That's all there > is.
The world's not nearly that black and white. There's a huge difference in infringment in an app you write for yourself vs an app that's very public. LLVM is somewhat closer to the latter end of the spectrum. I agree that excess paranoia isn't warranted, but neither is willful ignorance.