From help-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Fri Jan 22 03:06:24 1999
Subject: copyright stuff
From: Van den Eynde Gert <gvdeynde at SCKCEN dot BE>
To: "'Daniel Heiserer'" <Daniel dot Heiserer at bmw dot de>,         help-octave@bevo.che.wisc.edu
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 10:05:52 +0100

Hi all,

have a look at this (you need a free registration with NY Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/biztech/articles/12patent.html


The article is about the Supreme Court in America judging that a
mathematical
algorithm can be patented. 

I think this is a VERY bad situation for free software development and 
numerical analysis research. 

Where do you draw the line between a software product (like an mfile) and
the mathematical algorithm behind it ? Choice of variable names ? Choice of
loop ordering ? I really don't know.



Sincere greetings,

Gert Van den Eynde.


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