The reason for the cleanroom in the NEC case was that the Intel chip's design was a trade secret, and, as I recall, NEC was making second-sourcing the Intel chip under an NDA, meaning they'd be hugely liable if they couldn't show a clean reverse engineering process.
In the minix case, the source code was published (I have a copy) which means reverse engineering isn't an issue. Only copyright is the issue here, and tha't been disposed of.
My favorite quote from the report (re-quoted from the NYTimes article) "the pay-as-you-go approach could work if public and political support for space exploration by humans and robots could be maintained for several decades." --
And pigs will be sprouting wings any day now. Remember, this was from a panel criticized for being filled with "friendlies", IIRC.
This was answered by Ward Moore in his science fiction classic "Greener Than You Think" (1947). (Highly recommended.) I don't want to spoil it for potential readers, but the consequences are negative.
What's the best that could happen? This would allow greenskeepers to use glyphosate instead of the really nasty stuff they use now to control weeds on golph courses. Glyphosate being a relatively benign chemical.
Most probable result: somewhere in the middle. I won't estimate the probable value to society, since the only value I see in golf is amusement at the people doing it, but it would appear that the downside risk is likely to outweigh the upside potential.
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The reason for the cleanroom in the NEC case was that the Intel chip's design was a trade secret, and, as I recall, NEC was making second-sourcing the Intel chip under an NDA, meaning they'd be hugely liable if they couldn't show a clean reverse engineering process. In the minix case, the source code was published (I have a copy) which means reverse engineering isn't an issue. Only copyright is the issue here, and tha't been disposed of.
My favorite quote from the report (re-quoted from the NYTimes article) "the pay-as-you-go approach could work if public and political support for space exploration by humans and robots could be maintained for several decades." -- And pigs will be sprouting wings any day now. Remember, this was from a panel criticized for being filled with "friendlies", IIRC.
This was answered by Ward Moore in his science fiction classic "Greener Than You Think" (1947). (Highly recommended.) I don't want to spoil it for potential readers, but the consequences are negative. What's the best that could happen? This would allow greenskeepers to use glyphosate instead of the really nasty stuff they use now to control weeds on golph courses. Glyphosate being a relatively benign chemical. Most probable result: somewhere in the middle. I won't estimate the probable value to society, since the only value I see in golf is amusement at the people doing it, but it would appear that the downside risk is likely to outweigh the upside potential.