Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Steven Champeon <schampeo AT hesketh.com>]

So, amazon.com has been awarded a patent on affiliate programs.

 <http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US06029141__>

Tim O'Reilly has shown some guts in responding to the patent by
asking Amazon to refuse to use it as a club against competitors:

 <http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/>

He's also provided a petition you can sign in order to show your 
support of the request and your disgust with the patent and with
Amazon's behavior.

 <http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/amazon_patent.comments.html>

I've signed it, and added language to my site (<http://dhtml-guis.com>)
to the effect that a purchase from amazon is expressing support for
antisocial behavior that is ultimately destructive to all. I've also
changed the default clickthrough bookseller on my site to fatbrain.com.

In essence, they've introduced what will become a major backlash
against the very network effects that spawned their success, and
which they are trying to "protect".

Opinions?

Steve