Patent Absurdity is a film I just finished watching about software patents. The film is overflowing with topics that I have long planned on exploring on this very weblog, including:

• the concept of patenting mathematics and algorithms
• the impacts of software patents on individual software developers
• the vampire like nature of companies who buy software patents, don’t build software, and sue software developers

After watching Patent Absurdity, I now plan on adding this item to that list:

• the problems with the open source movement’s leadership being dominated by elitist white men and an examination of the voices excluded

Patent Absurdity was funded and created by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), an organization whose work I have consistently admired. A representative from almost every organization linked to under the heading 'Free software advocates' in the sidebar of this very weblog was featured.

Why, given the diversity of the open source movement, did the this coalition produce a film made up of white men lecturing the viewer? The list of narrators consists of over a dozen white males, only one woman (Karen Sandler, of the Software Freedom Law Center, who rocked it by the way), and not a single person of color. In addition to the exclusion of women and people of color, there was not a single software developer affected by a software patent showcased, despite us being the individuals most affect by software patents.

I would much prefer this to be a post about how open source software was used for all the post-production work of the film, highlighting the maturity of open source software, yadda, yadda, yadda, instead of a post about the lack of diversity of the open source software movement. But, well, the lack of diversity is perhaps the biggest patent absurdity I learned about from the movie.

More here.