Re: [Exim] Is exim in trouble?

> > I am also against the patenting of ideas and such. Actually, i'm against
> > patents in general. To me it seems that "I make product and patent it so
> > you can't make it" causes a monopoly on that one product (microsoft
> > anyone?). I'm not up on history so I don't know what went on before
> > publication.
>
> I believe the original idea was to give a small inventor time to tool
> up, produce a product, and get some market share before letting
> competition in. Otherwise a large company might be able to muscle in
> "unfairly".

I can understand that. But then again, if anyone muscles into it (assuming
no such thing as patents), that's simply greed. Unfortunately, there's too
much in the world.

> When you invent something physical, you tend to invent what might be
> called "proof of concept", which can take some time to develop to the
> stage of being a manufacturable product.

I work for a manufacturing company Electro-Mechanical Corp. They own Line
Power (mining equiptment and switch gear), Federal Pacific Transformer, and
a few other companies that make products. I have seen their concepts for
things. Some things haven't even hit the first prototype yet, only on
paper/cad.

> By contrast, once software has been demonstrated to work, it *is* the
> product. "Manufacturing" is trivial. The timescale is completely
> different, as Sheldon has pointed out. I agree with his point on that.

I've not understood "manufacturing of software". Once written, it is the
end result. They just have to put it into a form to ship it (is this
manufacturing it? =)

> I don't have a huge problem with protection for large software packages
> - though copyright seems to do that job anyway. It's the patenting of
> techniques that is probably the biggest worry. Stuff that you invent off
> the top of your head and which is "obvious"...

I wonder if MD5 is patented.

> > Who'll take your place in exim? You do excelent work with exim Philip.
>
> That is a discussion I am planning to start when I get back from
> Australia next January.

I know this won't happen (mainly because I don't have the patents/time to
put into it), but if I happen to take over exim, the place I work for would
probably quit using it. They seem to dislike software I maintain/write =)

--
Lab tests show that use of micro$oft causes cancer in lab animals