Friday, August 05, 2005

Is software a matter of discovery rather than invention? I think it is. I discover a way to get from A to B using code, much like I discover a route from point A to B using roads. You could say the roads already exist, so it's not a discovery to figure out a route. But our notion of discovery is really to make plain that which already exists. Columbus discovered America and it already existed. DNA already existed. Gravity already existed. Many mathematicians are at bottom Platonists. Invention is something much more rare. We rarely invent anything in software, while we constantly make discoveries. That's why software is so fun! Out of my hundreds and hundreds of thousands of lines of code how many real inventions have I made? I've been clever. I've been effective. But I don't know if I've ever invented anything, yet virtually all of my brain farts are patentable by current standards. So I stand along side Donald Knuth (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050724140820490) who sayeth: My personal opinion is that algorithms are like mathematics, i.e. inherently non-patentable. It worries me that most patents are about simple ideas that I would expect my students to develop them as part of their homework. Sometimes there are exceptions, e.g. something as refined as the inner point method of linear programming, where one can really talk about a significant discovery. Yet for me that is still mathematics. I come from a mathematical culture where we don't charge money from people who use our theorems. There is the notion that mathematics is discovered rather than invented. comment[] 10:05:23 PM

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