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From: bruce@VANHALEN.RUTGERS.EDU (Shane Bruce)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: Lenat's AM program
Message-ID: <1957@vanhalen.rutgers.edu>
Date: Fri, 30-Oct-87 09:05:35 EST
Article-I.D.: vanhalen.1957
Posted: Fri Oct 30 09:05:35 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Nov-87 22:53:55 EST
References: <8710211650.AA18715@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <281@umich.UUCP> <774@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
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Reply-To: bruce@vanhalen.rutgers.edu (Shane Bruce)
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In article <774@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> tgd@ORSTCS.CS.ORST.EDU (Tom Dietterich) 
writes:
>
>In the biological sciences, publication of an article reporting a new
>clone obligates the author to provide that clone to other researchers
>for non-commercial purposes.  I think we need a similar policy in
>computer science.  Publication of a description of a system should
>obligate the author to provide listings of the system (a running
>system is probably too much to ask for) to other researchers on a
>non-disclosure basis. 
>

The policy which you are advocating, while admirable, is not practical.  No
corporation which is involved in state of the art AI research is going to
allow listings of their next product/internal tool to made available to the
general scientific community, even on a non-disclosure basis.  Why should
they give away what they intend to sell?

A more practical solution would be for all articles to include a section
on implementation which, while not providing listings, would at least provide
enough information that the project could be duplicated by another competent
researcher in the field.


-- 
Shane Bruce
HOME: (201) 613-1285                WORK: (201) 932-4714
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