Re: [Patents] RSA patents in EP limelight

[roberto@dicosmo.org]

Dear Paul,
     I am sorry, I do not share your point of view on Ullman's article,
which is in my opinion very interesting for a computer scientist, like
I am; and I do believe that Jeffrey Ullman knows what he is talking
about (I suspect you did not appreciate the fine humour in this article,
that's a pity, but that's the risk of such articles).

But that's not the point: you were complaining about the lack of
official declarations of scientists on software patents, and I just
pointed out that some great minds of our time have done it, and
that the 30 something people signing the declaration in Europe _are_
great computer scientists.

Nevertheless, I confirm that I agree with you that this kind of voices is not
taken into account at the level they deserve, and I am ready to lend
a hand, if that may help, to help with anything that may change this
situation.

Sincerely

--Roberto

>>>>> "P" == P L Hayes <P.L.Hayes> writes:

    P> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 11:01:53 +0200 roberto@dicosmo.org wrote:

    >> Some great minds of our time have expressed their detailed opinion on
    >> these issues, see for example:
    >> 
    >> http://www-db.stanford.edu/~ullman/pub/focs00.html

    P> Rather ambivalent about software patentability and he even applauds the
    P> RSA patent. I don't think he really understands what he is saying and 
if
    P> he does, that is even worse. Knuth himself was much clearer in his 
letter
    P> to the PTO:

    P> http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/knuth-to-pto.txt

    P> as I'm sure you knew already. I can think of several eminent
    P> mathematicians and scientists who have shown a willingness to make 
public
    P> their views on 'political matters' before and who I am sure would see
    P> more clearly the evil of software patents than Ullman has.

-- 
--Roberto Di Cosmo
 
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