Side note. When I was preparing biographies of Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv (the inventors of LZ77 and LZ78), I read an interview with Lempel. He was asked why

Side note. When I was preparing biographies of Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv (the inventors of LZ77 and LZ78), I read an interview with Lempel. He was asked why they hadn't patented their algorithms. And he replied like this: we're scientist, our goal is to improve the world, not be rich. His answer surprised me. They clearly knew that the invention is remarkable and would be profitable, but deliberately made it free.