Though he did not have a blog, Thomas Jefferson "sounded off" (to use your term) on this issue nearly 200 years ago, in a letter to Isaac McPherson dated August 13, 1813 (the text of the full letter is found here: http://www.temple.edu/lawschool/dpost/mcphersonletter.html).

His primary point is that ideas are by nature designed to spread for the benefit of society and are not inherently to be made a subject of property - and thus if a society decides to deny to inventors any rights to exclusive claim on an idea, no one has any reason to complain.

In his words:

"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body."

This is a philosophical argument against the idea of patents generally.

Jefferson lost this argument.

Thus, the Patent (and Copyright) Clause of the Constitution (Article I, sec. 8, cl. 8) provides that the Congress shall have the power "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." In the first U.S. Patent Act (Act of April 10, 1790, 1 Stat. 109, 110), Congress implemented its constitutional authority to sanction patent monopolies by defining patentable subject matter very broadly, to include "any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement therein." Congress amended the Act in 1793 and then again in 1952, so that today it reads as to the idea of "patentable subject matter" as follows (35 U.S.C. sec. 101): "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title."

Jefferson made a second very important point in his 1813 letter, and this bears directly on the philosophical dispute underlying the patentability of process or software patents (of course, he did not discuss it in terms of software).

This second point deals with the idea that new uses for old machines or processes should not constitute patentable subject matter.

Jefferson believed that a "machine of which we were possessed, might be applied by every man to any use of which it is susceptible, and that this right ought not to be taken from him and given to a monopolist, because the first perhaps had occasion so to apply it."

In essence, the Jeffersonian position amounted to saying that society was free if it liked to grant limited monopolies on useful ideas that had utility for commerce but there was no inherent right in an inventor to claim such a monopoly - it all depended on the judgment of society. If, however, a society had once decided to grant such monopolies in order to promote commerce, then the monopoly should extend only to the original invention and not to any new use made of it thereafter. Why? Because ideas are meant to be freely transferred for the benefit of society, including the free application of any "machine" by any person to any use of which it is susceptible and, as Jefferson put it, "this right ought not to be taken from him and given to a monopolist."

While Jefferson had lost on the broader idea of abrogating patent protection generally, the more limited idea that discoveries of new uses for old machines or processes were not patentable subject matter did hold sway for quite a while in leading U.S. judicial decisions. For example, in Roberts v. Ryer, 91 U.S. 150, 157 (1875), the Supreme Court held that "it is no new invention to use an old machine for a new purpose."

In 1952, however, Congress explicitly overturned this line of judicial decisions. Specifically, it defined as a patentable process any "process, art, or method" and specified that this included "a new use of a known process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or material." (35 U.S.C. sec. 100(b)).

Of course, this 1952 amendment to the Patent Act laid the foundation for a significant expansion of "process" patents and specifically for the adoption of software patents. Why? Because, in a world of general-purpose computing devices, all kinds of existing machines and processes are "susceptible to new uses." Indeed, this is the very nature of software, which can apply to an almost infinite range of potential uses. Once the principle was established that such new uses fell within the statutory definition of "patentable subject matter," then a broad array of such patents could be issued, subject only to meeting other requirements of patentability such as novelty, non-obviousness, utility, etc.

With the modern development of the free and open software movements, the old philosophical debate has taken on new life but the prospects of the "free" side winning this debate, in my view, are likely doubtful. The legal tradition is deeply entrenched in favor of patents, as are the commercial interests. One is left, then, with what amounts to a philosophical argument that patents (or at least process patents) are bad.

Insofar as the law is concerned, the issue will be addressed in the Supreme Court's forthcoming decision in Bilski, expected this year. Beyond that, relevant arguments must be addressed to Congress, which does have the authority to redefine what constitutes patentable subject matter and hence the theoretical power to abolish software patents in general.

Sounding off on blogs definitely furthers the momentum for change but a lot more would be needed to effect a change of view on issues that are so deeply rooted in U.S. history and legal tradition. So long as this remains primarily an ideological position of the free/open software movement, and nothing more, it will likely languish along with the old Jeffersonian sentiment that today sounds so quaintly out of date. I am not saying this in a patronizing way. For something to come of this besides just sounding off, a major shift in mindset has to occur in society generally, and I don't see any evidence of this as yet.