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From
SubjectRe: Article: IBM wants to "clean up the license" of Linux
Date
On Wed, 23 Dec 1998 18:15:39 -0700 (MST), you wrote:

> Does IBM
> deserve a patent that a high-schooler can reinvent?
>
>The US Constitution and the US legal system have an interesting view
>of the question--and it isn't what most people think it is. Their
>view is that patents don't exist for the sake of patent owners. The
>official reason for patents in the US is "to promote progress."

The theory goes that without the patent system, inventions would tend
to be kept secret and thus progress would be slowed.

Of course this has never been perfect. My favorite example is Mr Otis,
who invented a scheme for automatically stopping a runaway elevator
with a system of weights and flywheels. Elevators were a dicey affair
130 years ago. With his scheme, patented, they became *almost*
perfectly safe. He wanted a lot for the licenses. All the big
manufacturers waited out the 17 years and then adopted the idea.

I suspect gcc will have a much improved register allocation scheme in
2003 for the same reason.

John Alvord
Music, Management, Poetry and more...
http://www.candlelist.org/kuilema
Cheap CDs @ http://www.cruzio.com/~billpeet/MusicByCandlelight



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