On Tue, Apr 12, 2005 at 10:32:04AM +0700, Tracy R Reed wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Michael O'Keefe wrote: > > Becoz software is just mathematics, and mathematics are explicitly > > excluded from being patentable. That's why all these 'software' patents > > This is quite true. You cannot count to infinity in binary without > violating every software patent (and copyright!) in existance. A > computer program is just one really big number. You can't patent (or > copyright) a number but you can software which is a discrepancy. >
Your experiment would also write every book ever written (in ASCII), yet I see the virtue in copyright for a limited period. Surely there is some value in the artist putting the words or lines of code into a pleasing pattern for our use. Patent is a different animal, as it protects not just what you've done, but everything someone else might do like it. Software patents are evil. Imagine if compilers had been patented. -- Lan Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux Guy, SCM Specialist 858-354-0616 -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
