Should I be able to patent this technology? Should I just release it? If I just release it, wouldn't a large company patent aspects of it and sue me for infringement (it costs $ to prove prior art).
If you publish your code, it becomes prior art. It doesn't cost much to stand up in court and say "uh, look guys, this code you're suing me over was published before you applied for your patent", and the case would be thrown out immediately.
In practice I doubt it would ever get that far: If there's one thing patent lawyers pay attention to, it's dates, and lawyers hate looking like idiots.
Lawyers do sometimes mess up on dates. I hate to trot this story out yet again, but MIT did get sued because of my dorm's laundry webserver. A webserver which had been Slashdoted before the company applied for its patent.
Of course, they did back down once the facts were explained to them so you're right at least that far.
I would hope it would be easy to show prior art, but stuff like this (http://m.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/21/texas_jury_says_google...) is where it becomes "hard" to prove prior art. Because you have to prove it against a jury of, generally, non-technical people. Here is the primary claim:
* a linked list to store and provide access to records stored in a memory of the system, at least some of the records automatically expiring
a record search means utilizing a search key to access the linked list
the record search means including a means for identifying and removing at least some of the expired ones of the records from the linked list when the linked list is accessed
* a means – utilizing the record search means – for accessing the linked list and, at the same time, removing at least some of the expired ones of the records in the linked list
If you publish your code, it becomes prior art. It doesn't cost much to stand up in court and say "uh, look guys, this code you're suing me over was published before you applied for your patent", and the case would be thrown out immediately.
In practice I doubt it would ever get that far: If there's one thing patent lawyers pay attention to, it's dates, and lawyers hate looking like idiots.