European administrations should share software resources

[Rui Miguel Seabra]

On Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 02:55:32AM +0200, Simo Sorce wrote:
> copyright does not "protect" ideas, only specific implementations.

That's the whole point, right? Unfourtunately a freely expressed idea can be
improved in a proprietary way, which is not something I can wish for.

> > The around 340 lines of the GPL could represent quite some important
> > math theorems (and respective proofs). Are they less significant than a
> > a gigabyte of 1+1.... ?
> that does not matter, as a 340 lines code can be easily analyzed and
> recoded in other form, so in that case putting it in Public Domain
> (where that is possible) or using the GPL would not make much
> difference.

340 loc can express quite complex ideas that may take hundreds of years
to prove... :) so I disagree with the 'easy analisys' point of view.

Quantity is hardly ever a good measure (and yes, I know of the saying:
if brute force does not solve your problem, you're not using enough!)

Cheers,
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