At 06:38 PM 7/29/99 EDT, Ernst Mayer wrote:
>>In fact, is the DWT patented?
>
>Crandall and Fagin published the details in 1994 in Math. Comp., which
>(I believe) precludes any patenting. Had they patented it first, they
>would be licensing others to use it, meaning that the EFF money would
>likely not be an issue, since GIMPS would not have gotten started without
>free software for all to use.
Had there been no George Woltman, a "GIMPS" would have started anyway,
albeit with much inferior (and non-DWT) code. George got there first,
and he got it right the first time.
Follow-ups to soc.history.what-if
--Luke
_________________________________________________________________
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
