On 21 Mar 2005 12:47:07 -0800, Paul McGuire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Brian, > > Having reviewed your Cease and Desist petition, I'm afraid I must > dispute some or all of your claims: > > 1. Your citation of prior art has one or more significant defects: > a. In your citation, "brace" is clearly rhymed with "whitespace", not > "space". The broad concept of "whitespace" is substantially different > from the specific term "spaces": "whitespace" encompasses all > white-printing characters, including tabs, formfeeds, and carriage > returns, as well as space characters. In the more general field of > publishing, "whitespace" also includes page margins, paragraph breaks, > and block indentations for embedded quotes or subsections. In my > submission, "spaces" is specifically intended to narrowly refer to the > character defined in ISO 8879 as ASCII code 32. Especially, I did > *not* intend to include reference to the ISO 8879 ASCII code 9 > character, or "tab". > b. Prior art predates your citation, see Guido van Rossum's post > "[marketing-python] How About a Slogan or Tagline?", at > http://wingware.com/pipermail/marketing-python/2002-March/003851.html, > which includes several notable references to derivative forms of > "brace" and "space". > 2. As the Python language's most salient feature is its usage of spaces > for program structuring, as opposed to use of enclosing brace > characters in related scripting languages (Tcl, Perl) and compiled > languages (C, C++, Java, C#), the juxtaposition of "brace" and "space" > in any poetic construct is obvious, and this obviousness further erodes > your IP claim. > 3. I think my poem was funnier - "lost track of his braces" (humorous > allusion to suspenders) is a knee-slapper! ("Perl before swine" was > cute, but it's not new.) > > Still, I am open to negotiation - would you be interested in > cross-licensing my patent pending rhyming of "van Rossum" and > "awesome"? >
T'were two coders in c.l.p Who liked to argue legally About copyright All day and night, Just to prove their inanity -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
