Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!aplcen!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers! cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd From: brns...@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.mail.mh, misc.legal,trial.misc.legal.software Subject: Please move these discussions to trial.misc.legal.software! Message-ID: <23596:Aug3102:20:2890@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Date: 31 Aug 90 02:20:28 GMT Sender: brns...@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) Followup-To: trial.misc.legal.software Organization: IR Lines: 28 Posted: Fri Aug 31 03:20:28 1990 Over the past weeks there have been several hundred messages on the LZW compression patent, algorithm patents in general, patents as they apply to software, look 'n' feel copyrights, and so on. Obviously the perfect place for these discussions is misc.legal.software. Not news.groups. Not news.admin. Not comp.risks. Not gnu.misc.discuss. Not comp.mail.mh. Not gnu.announce. Not even misc.legal. While it may be appropriate to crosspost some of the articles to some of these groups, the central thread is this: ``What intellectual property protection applies or should apply to software?'' misc.legal.software is the most specific group that reasonably contains this subject. Unfortunately, there isn't a misc.legal.software yet. But there is a trial.misc.legal.software, which will become misc.legal.software if it gets enough readers by October. Do you think that all these discussions are related? Do you hate skipping around lots of groups to follow the compression issue? Subscribe to trial.misc.legal.software! Send your articles there! Start new discussions! If you don't get trial.misc.legal.software, all you have to do is ask your sysadmin. Almost all major sites have been feeding the group since the beginning of the summer. Now vacation is over and there's no excuse for a site not to keep up on topics of such importance as the possible demise of ``compress.'' ---Dan