Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: <none> | Date | Wed, 15 Oct 1997 15:54:58 -0700 | From | Jim Dennis <> |
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>>> using base-19 (or higher) even "IA32" is just a number (127131 dec >>> for base-19;) > > Hm. This way one can get around any arbitrary text, claiming it's just > a number using an obscure base (get the following set of numbers using > base-25: "World Without Windows":]). > > Andrej
I had been avoiding this obvious comment. The U.S. Legal system is based on the theoretical "reasonable person" -- and there's a pretty strong argument that "reasonable persons" (outside of a particular given technical specialty) would not interpret designations that "appeared to be" English text -- and trademarks -- as expressions of numbers in obscure bases.
BTW: "World Without Windows" -- would more likely be base 52 (upper *and* lower case) or base 36 (digits *and* letters) or 62 (digits and upper/lower case letters). However it might be 12 or 13 -- if we just use the characters present in that "number" as "digits" in our base.
Last note on Trademark and Intellectual Property Thread:
If we could please drop this thread at this point. I don't think we'll reach consensus here -- and if we did I'm not sure we'd manager to convince FSF GNU (autoconf) maintainers to follow our lead.
It sounds like a relative simple change to make -- and a pretty expensive one to "clean up after" (given all the existing make files that are using the existing designation).
I'd hate to see us do something like "SETVER.EXE"
-- Jim Dennis (800) 938-4078 consulting@starshine.org Proprietor, Starshine Technical Services: http://www.starshine.org PGP 1024/2ABF03B1 Jim Dennis <jim@starshine.org> Key fingerprint = 2524E3FEF0922A84 A27BDEDB38EBB95A
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