On Sunday, February 9, 2014 1:37:27 PM UTC-5, rjf wrote: > > > > On Friday, February 7, 2014 9:17:23 PM UTC-8, kcrisman wrote: >> >> So, in the Sage/GAP/etc. urban legend, some pathetic PhD student proves a >> theorem, and then upon graduating can't afford the software it's >> implemented in. >> > Doesn't make sense to me. > "Implement a theorem"? > A theorem is a (true) statement. > Sometimes it is accompanied by a proof that it is true. > >
I was, of course, referring to the possibility of a theorem which proved that a certain algorithm worked. Nice argument for open source. I have no reason to disbelieve it, and have >> seen very similar quotes attributed to someone from the GAP project. But >> in the spirit of a Russian Olympics... trust but verify. >> > > The possibility that GAP is needed to run an algorithm is an argument in > favor of GAP. That > is, GAP provides an apparently unique capability -- one that is required, > at least at the moment -- > to do something of interest. > > True but not what I was talking about. The problem is that, at least in principle, if one proves an algorithm works (as a theorem, let's say) and then it's implemented, perhaps even by that person, in a software package they (or certainly their students) wouldn't have access to, that strikes me as unfortunate. Something intellectual was produced there. But IANAL and especially not an IP lawyer, so I will rest that there. On a related note, I couldn't exactly find in the quote in the GAP article where it said this actually *happened*. It just made it sound like "were this to happen". Was I missing another reference to this where it explicitly happened? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
