[emiliobumachar]

>It's also a world where entrenched companies can feel free to use whatever technology they want from smaller competitors without fear of lawsuit, and use it to further entrench themselves

I agree, but software patents are arguably bad enough that doing away with them entirely is worth the collateral.

A legislative solution might exist to have the best of both worlds, but, in the absence of that, suppose there's a copyleft-analogue hacky way to undermine software patents indiscriminately without requiring an Act of Congress. (and that's not a sure thing at all, but suppose.) Wouldn't you press the button?