3 ms·
This fast inverse square root function is very well known, with even a Wikipedia page, and it is more than 20 years old. My country doesn't have software paten
by speedgoose 5y ago
This fast inverse square root function is very well known, with even a Wikipedia page, and it is more than 20 years old. My country doesn't have software patents but it seems that the standard duration of a software patent is 20 years, so even if this function was patented, the patent would have expired by now.
- NautilusWave 5y agoCopyright is different from patent. Copyright is (basically) forever.
- speedgoose 5y agoCan a few lines of technical code hold a copyright for that long?
- lilyball 5y agoCopyright and patent are different. Also, while you can’t copyright an algorithm, your specific source code that implements it is copyrighted (assuming it’s sufficiently original). In this case it’s not implementing the algorithm, it’s copying a particular famous implementation, down to the comments.
- dublin 5y agoThere is no real reason for copyright terms to exceed patent terms. (And FWIW, patent terms should be inversely proportional to the number of patents issued in that category the previous year. This would automatically reduce terms in categories where innovation is rapid, promoting competition and drive to get to market, but preserve maximum protection for inventions in mature categories with a slower pace of innovation.
- dwild 5y ago> This fast inverse square root function is very well known, with even a Wikipedia page, and it is more than 20 years old. The Copilot algorithm didn't take this into account though... if it did, we probably couldn't complains about copyright infringement.