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Comment by cop359 | Hacker News Reader

according to wiki, Dijkstra's algorithm was published in 1959. If he had a patent on it for 15 years and made enough money to cover his troubles, then I don't really see it as a bad thing. Now a days, you might say that 15 years is too long and maybe that's true, but sometimes it takes people a very long time to monetize their ideas (due to technical problems, bad business partners, time needed to develop connections in the business etc.)

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But my argument is: if not only Dijkstra but a huge part of the comp sci community would have decided to patent their inventions it will be impossible to move forward in the field. Only the legal costs of "swimming" on this system will be prohibitive for the developers community.

More likely, institutions would license the patents and the field would move still move forward, just with more friction.

I don't see it that way. The comp sci field moved forward because of the democratization of the personal computer where you have the freedom to develop what you want and distribute it yourself.

For example one of the mini revolutions was Turbo Pascal from Borland offering the compiler for few bucks when compilers were more expensive, with patents all prices go high and that means few people or companies can spend money on that.

I just added an historical note about Turbo Pascal as a post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2608304

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