Dear R users etc As a substantial contribution to the OSS movement, R authors, developers and users will be keenly aware of the benefits R brings to the statistical community - and indeed the original S language itself. It is therefore very worrying to see the EU is thinking of /being pressurised into following the anti-competitive US patents type law. This would affect R (particularly as a number of R contributors are EU-based). It could also affect all other OSS unless software algorithms were specifically excluded. It is clearly not enough to exclude algorithms already published, in theses or books etc. It is entirely possible for many people to come up with essentially the same algorithm but the one with the sharpest lawyers could demand a licence fee from all the others. What is the difference between this and mathematical theorems? No one patents theorems - they are expected to acknowledge the authors by citation to avoid charges of plagiariasm. But what are many software algorithms if not implementations of mathematical theorems? This will stop software development in the EU - people in the US are already saying it has affected development and concentrated the software in the hands of a few already powerful companies with the aforesaid sharp lawyers. There is a meeting this next week in Paris. Please read and, assuming you agree, sign the petition http://swpat.ffii.org/miert. There are various language versions available. It looks serious. John -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._