Microsoft is eroding the ground out from under the FOSS world by doing this to one Linux distro or open source technology at a time.
I personally suspect the reason the U.S. government is allowing this to continue - and pushing so hard for international IP laws favorable to large companies - is in order to preserve US corporate dominance in key areas of technology. Something that's becoming increasingly hard to do now that the world's technical sophistication is catching up, or surpassing it, in areas where the US was traditionally considered the world leader. (Examples include: genetic research being throttled or actively blocked because of fundamentalist religious opposition; space exploration due to public indifference and mounting public debt following the Afghanistan and Iraq military actions, etc.),
Now that America has farmed out as much manufacturing and production as it possibly can (for short term stock gains that primarily benefit corporate directors and officers no less!), what else do most large US businesses have left to protect?
If people around the world refuse to let the US have a legal lock on all innovation through an abusive copyright and troll infested patent system, Uncle Sam is screwed royally. And the US legislature and corporations all know it.
It's no accident so much important research is being conducted in places other than the US. The US has lost it's way. And the rest of the world has better things to do with itself besides waiting for all those right-thinking-god-fearing-freedom-loving Americans to get their act together and rediscover the sources of their former greatness. (Hint: a commitment to innovation, the discipline to forgo short-term gains in order to invest in the future, a respect for education, a willingness to take chances and experiment, and the ability to see beyond next quarter's profit statement.)
Maybe nobody likes patent trolling. But I think the government can't figure out a way to prevent it and still keep it's restrictive global IP agenda on track.
Trolls may be evil. But as of right now, the government considers them as an unfortunate side effect of a bigger agenda. And that's to keep
what lead the US still has in certain key areas of technology through legal fiat rather than innovation and entrepreneurship.
So don't expect any relief from Washington or US courts on any of this crap.
About the only thing we
can expect is for all the "alphabet soup" coming out of Washington (ACTA, PIPA, SOPA, PreCISE, DMCA, etc.) to increase as time goes on.
That and for the rest of the world to eventually say: "You know what USA? Screw you! Get lost."
