Just because you have spent a whole summer figuring something out doesn't mean you should have long lasting government protected monopoly to use it. The problem

Just because you have spent a whole summer figuring something out doesn't mean you should have long lasting government protected monopoly to use it. The problem with software patents is that it's very likely other people would come up with similar solutions if they spent time on the problem. There is no reason to give the monopoly to the one first around the post. This is especially true for things that took a few months and very little capital to figure out.