Jim Zemlin had a long interview (part1 and part2) with Linus Torvalds. The first part is more about kernel development, but the second touches the topic of software patents:
Patents are nasty. It’s kind of hard to really say a lot more than the fact that patents on ideas in general are a huge mistake and the whole notion that you can have patents, business models and software is pretty broken to begin with.
And:
innovation is way too over used a word and people seem to think it’s something wonderfully good and the fact is […] [i]nnovation is not that important and it shouldn’t be because in the end what you want to do is you want to get the work done and 99% of that is really – it’s not about innovation.


