Check out
http://www.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpatents.html
At $0.10 per binary digit, the royalty fee GIMPS would
owe Microsoft for the last Mersenne prime is nearly
$700000. Should we divide this equally amongst GIMPS
participants, or bill people proportionally to their
CPU-year contributions? I hope the fellow whose run
actually discovered the prime hasn't spent all his
EFF prize money yet...
On the plus side, such royalty fees are legitimately tax
deductible as business expenses. As usual, we can count
on Bill Gates to look out for the little guy. Thanks,
Bill!
-Ernst
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