IMO software patents should be entirely abolished. If you look at patents from before computers entered the picture, a patent covered the idea + implementation.

IMO software patents should be entirely abolished. If you look at patents from before computers entered the picture, a patent covered the idea + implementation. Someone could create a better bucket design and patent that design, what one could not do is patent the idea of "a container that holds liquid". But that seems to be exactly what has happened with software patents. With software, the idea is very much divorced with the implementation (I think Paul Graham or someone else said a while back that an idea by itself is worthless, it's all about the execution of the idea). It seems that with software patents is less "this is my invention, I want to protect it" and more "hey I had this cool idea, now no one can have the same idea again".