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

[Robin Green]

On Sat, Nov 22, 2003 at 02:16:15AM +0000, Robin Green wrote:
> 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.

Sorry to reply to myself, but I couldn't help laughing at the description
of the algorithm used by AskIgor, at http://www.st.cs.uni-sb.de/dd/

"Delta Debugging automates the scientific method of debugging.
The basic idea of the scientific method is to establish a hypothesis
on why something does not work. You test this hypothesis, and you
refine or reject it depending on the test outcome."

So the patent in question appears to cover the scientific method.

Oh no sorry, my mistake! It only covers the scientific method
"on a computer".

Such a different kettle of fish!

-- 
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 writing in Syllabus magazine
  http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=8460