Three lovely gems (via Slashdot). Firstly, the travesty that is EU Software Patents. The Register seems to have decomposed the issue quite well. this article describes what's going on very well, and also explains why this is just going to happen, no matter what has been said. It's too polite to say that the people involved (particulalrly those voting on it) are thoroughly clueless and need to understand the bigger picture of life, not just "I might get the sack if the US walks out of WTO meetings". Given the right encouragement, other continents could work out just fine.

Secondly, here's an example of patent abuse. It's of course SCO's case against IBM. I personally see this as a cynical bit of litigation bourne by an overly litigious legal system and a company who isn't quite making it in the world because of changing business models. (article)

Lastly, a slightly thin article about the marriage of viruses and email spam. I have to agree that the two will eventially be used in the same way. The sort of are already, so it's only a matter of time until the two factions organise themselves. I think the answer is cleverer mail transfer agents (MTAs) that filter viruses and spam. I suspect secure, certificate authenticated email would be incredibly useful too. (article)