Just occasionally I come across a story that turns my world view upside down. We’ve become accustomed to the horror stories of large corporations using and misusing software patents to swallow up small business and buy out rights to alleged infringing programs.

Australian entrepreneur Ray Richardson’s story is different. ABC’s The Big Deal featured a story on his Uniloc system, which ties a software license to the machine on which it is installed. He later found that Microsoft had taken the idea and used it in a wide range of their products. Had he not filed a patent at the time of inventing the software, he would never have been able to claim infringement.

His story goes to show that not everything is so cut and dried in this world. It’s all very well to campaign for free software – and I’ll continue to do so – but the software patenting system, while heavily flawed (and, I still believe, is not the right way to protect the rights of an inventor), just occasionally serves the purpose for which it was originally intended.

I’m still firmly Free Software/Creative Commons, and hurrah for ‘Open Source’ (aka GPL 2.0′d) MoveableType. I’ve tried out a number of blog/web2.0/CMS type applications and would have to say this and Squiz’s MySource Matrix probably take the cake for the friendliest interfaces so far.

Matrix wins hands down for me as far as seriously flexible content presentation & ease of use; I’ve also spent a fair bit of time of late working with Microsoft’s MOSS (Sharepoint 2007) which I’d describe as just plain weird in that Microsoft way we all love to hate, but a useful exercise in XML/XSLT. I’m not overly fond of proprietary software but clients find it easy to use and its popularity is growing, so for anyone working with CMS’s in an Office environment it tends to be a necessary evil.