[Fsfe-uk] AskIgor: (A program, not agony uncle!) Another software patent case study

[Robin Green]

Here's maybe another good example to point people towards in the
software patent debate. It could probably be explained in simple
terms for non-computer-experts quite easily.

AskIgor is an IMO quite interesting piece of technology for assisting
in software debugging. It is in its early stages, but has the
potential to save countless person-hours of grunt work and
head-scratching in debugging:

http://www.st.cs.uni-sb.de/askigor/faq.php

Unfortunately, the more advanced variations of this technology are
subjected to an (IMO completely bogus) software patent. Which has
been taken out by a university, as well - so I am assuming that the
work leading to this patent has been paid for by public money, to
add insult to injury.

I have posted a protest / public warning to the AskIgor forums here:

http://www.st.cs.uni-sb.de/askigor/forums/viewtopic.php?p=129#129

It is perhaps a little badly worded because I had to correct it after
writing it after noticing some errors - like that the authors
of AskIgor are NOT the relevant patent holders (AFAIK).

(Please bear that in mind when assigning blame!)

However, my post does go into pedantic detail - for those that want
that sort of thing. ;)

-- 
Robin

"it's FREE and we get the ability to modify the source code ourselves,
something that is extremely dangerous to do, was discredited decades ago..."
 - Howard Strauss, in a now-notorious article in Syllabus magazine
  http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=8460