But that's fine. I would prefer having the specs - that helps a lot in writing high quality drivers. That said, open source relied a lot on reverse-engineering in the past - not to mention that reverse-engineering is much easier these days. But not being able to e.g. merge a driver into the Linux Kernel because of a software patent is an actual, real blocker. Same thing with patent-encumbered codecs.

Patents was supposed to be a tool to enable competition, but does the reverse now - and it is holding as back as society. We should move away from it. Especially and specifically when it comes to vague, loose ideas just like the GP post says here.