Internet Stopped Being Fun This Year, Dec 28, 2003

When an obscure Utah software firm can claim that it owns part of the Linux operating system and demand royalty payments (without offering public proof!), when Microsoft must redesign its Web browser because a programmer got a patent for an obvious way to add multimedia to Web pages, and when manufacturers of things ranging from printer cartridges to garage-door openers get sued under the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, no developer or consumer can be safe. Is that the future we want to live in?