Does it make a difference if the project is commercial or not?
Hypothetical scenario. Say I have a moderately successful application and I publish all or parts of its source code. How likely is this to make me a target for patent trolls?
No matter the nature of a product, it's fair to assume that at least something somewhere in its implementation has already been done and patented - I remember reading about a linked list patent some while ago.
If your software threatens monopolies, they will fight back.