Okay, it looks like everyone has said their piece and the discussion has been devolving, so I'm going to exercise my editorial prerogative and cut off comments.
I think that the patent issue is important for future development of technology, but there are valuable points to be made on both sides.
If anyone is interested in contributing an essay -- on either side of the debate -- email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. If you have some constructive solutions to propose, even better!
Meanwhile, with major vendors like ReactionGrid leaving OpenSim, that should be a bigger worry for those of us looking forward to mainstream adoption of the technology. Yes, we can run OpenSim at home, for free, but not all of us have the time, energy, broadband, computer capacity or technical skills to do that and without vendors OpenSim would be a much, much, much smaller place.