If you want to add value to the Web, do it for everybody. Not just for yourselves. No strings, patents or anything else attached. The concept of ownership helps make big things happen, but only altruism can make the biggest things happen.
Title says all.
Software is speech, so software patents are speech patents. This proposed change in W3C philosophy has gone through mostly unnoticed because of the WTC tragedy. Microsoft, IBM, HP and all the other Big Companies are now toasting in expensive champagne because of this. Disney, Warner, Sony and all the other Big Companies have begun cooling their expensive champagne to celebrate this one. Big Companies, 1.000.000 - Small Companies and the general public, 0.