Z:gnu-www-ja-stallman-mec-india--60527c-Now this is not exactly the sa/en

Now this is not exactly the same as prohibiting software patents, because in some cases computers are used as part of specific physical equipment to make it do a specific thing. And software patents might be allowed if they are part of a specific physical activity. But that's not really a disaster. After all, once people are involved in a specific physical activity or a specific physical product, they are bringing into their whole business all those complexities of dealing with matter. So it's more like those other fields of engineering. Maybe it's okay to have patents on that narrow kind of software. As long as we can keep the core areas of software, the purely software activities safe from patents, we have solved the bulk of the problem.