I'm surprised more companies don't do this, because it seems to me that the impact is clear: Like ambulance chasing, patent trolling relies on the simple principle that it's much, much cheaper to settle than to go to court -- for both sides. It's huge that they won, but they didn't need to. By sending the message that they will always go to court, my guess is they'll stop being sued.
On the other hand, the trolls know this, and may react by targeting companies that do this to demonstrate that it's not an effective strategy.
It's basic game theory. A single company standing up to the trolls is unlikely to make any difference (or at least looks unlikely in the absence of an example like Newegg), and may incur costs far greater than if they simply folded. If everybody stood up to the trolls together, then everybody would be better off, but the better strategy for the individuals is to fold. Prisoners' Dilemma writ large.
I continue to wonder why more companies being threatened by patent trolls don't band together to share legal expenses of a defense. Is there something in the legal rules and procedures that prevents a shared defense?
Yes, except that what we're starting to see is once a company settles with one troll, others hear they're an easy mark and show up with more demands. So even for a single company, settling is starting to become a bad strategy. As soon as you settle with one, that's that much less money you have to fight the next one with... and there will be a next one.
I used to feel the same way, since finding in c. 2006 that using an ATI card with Linux was pretty much impossible. However, this all changed when I built a new machine last year, and wanted 3 monitors. Two monitors worked great with Nvidia; 3 was impossible. I've found that, although still a little buggy, 3 monitors w/ Ubuntu, ATI/AMD graphics card and "EyeFinity" works great (on KDE at least):
http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Precise_Installation...
Note that you must use a single graphics card for this, which therefore must support 3 monitors. And in response to the grandparent -- I had the same issues with the order of monitors. Luckily they were all identical, so I just swapped the plugs.
If you use two different cards and some playing around with X.org you can get the nVidia drivers to play nice with 3 monitors.
Granted, it might be the most difficult configuration I've ever tried to figure out on *nix and I'm not trying to shoot you down, but for anyone reading your comment it's not actually "impossible".
A wiki doesn't seem right either. When's the last time you've ever sat and browsed through a wiki looking for awesome stuff you didn't know about?
Wikis, imho, are a bit like search engines. They're great for collecting stuff that you want to find again, and they're great for finding stuff you're looking for. Blogs have something more - they point you to stuff which you never knew you could care about, they expand your interests. Wikis are a very clumsy substitute.
I think what's needed is perhaps an evolution of the blog format.
Actually I browse through wikis quite a bit, but maybe I'm not typical. In any event, IMO, a blog (web log) is for just that: logging time-sensitive things, like a journal or news feed. A wiki is for more permanent information, that may be updated as needed, but stays put.
