lination to acquire patents in the first
place—most free software projects cannot afford the latter
possibility, and must capitulate immediately even if they think it
highly likely that the patent would be unenforceable in court.  To
avoid getting into such a situation in the first place, free software
projects are starting to code defensively, avoiding patented
algorithms in advance even when they are the best or only available
solution to a programming problem.<sup>[<a id="idp8720592" href="#ftn.idp8720