[sutro]

I'm disappointed by the number of software patent apologists on this thread. The effort or the cost required to accomplish something in software is not a good argument for being granted a government monopoly on your type of solution. Code itself can be copyrighted and does not have to be shared. Novelists spend years on novels, have their exact words copyrighted, but don't expect to be granted "patents" on the ability to tell certain types of stories. We need to free programming from these illegitimate shackles. We programmers deserve to have the same freedoms as writers when we sit down to tell our stories in code.