Hi William! On 21 Nov., 11:07, William Stein <[email protected]> wrote: [...] > > There was a question in the Sage Survey about what to do with $10^6. I > > really think those brand name / trademark / patent / ... things would > > be worth the money! > > I don't really care. I just want everybody to have first rate > mathematics software that satisfies their needs. I'm against > software patents, since I do *not* think they contribute to this goal, > and in fact do quite the opposite.
Agreed. And in fact I did not suggest to get patents for Sage. However, when I recently helped my son in a school project on the invention of the telephone, I was on the one hand amazed how different the story is told in the German and in the English Wikipedia. And on the other hand I was shocked that, at least according to German Wikipedia, Bell used his patent to prevent other people from further developing the telephone -- even the people who presented the telephone in the USA several years before Bell had a working model on his own. Now translate it to 2009. I don't know how the law is today. My question: Would it be possible for (just as an example) Wolfram to get patents for known algorithms *and* forbid other people to further develop these algorithms? Would it be possible to get a patent on the manipulate/interact feature, even though it was openly available since at least 2002 or even <1999? If this were the case, then wouldn't it be worth to spend some money? -- Not to get a patent, but in order to prevent people from getting a patent who don't deserve it! Cheers, Simon -- To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
