Library Card

The OSDL wants to work with Sourceforge on a "library" of Linux code routines.As ZDNet UK notes today, the aim is to give commercial developers something they can go through to see whether what they want to patent has already been invented.This is, as a current resident of Camp Cupcake might say, "a very good thing." But it can be better.Because every programmer worth their PC, and every company, has their own little library of code, bits-and-pieces they can use to cook up something new. You don't want to be re-inventing the wheel all the time.So why not share it? In other words, don't just leave this library available for the other guys to steal from in the name of "research." Let everyone access it. Give every open source developer their own library card. Encourage them to send in what they have in order to protect it from patent attorneys, but also give them the option of taking known open source code back into their own hard drives, even if it came from someone else.Talk about jump-starting innovation. It's something commercial software can never have. It's a value guaranteed under the rules of open source.And to think we'd have those pesky patent attorneys to thank for it!