Re: [dvd-discuss] Fwd: Australian Court rules: Films aren't software

[Tom <tom(at)lemuria.org>]

On Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 02:01:22PM -0500, Robert S. Thau wrote:
> (The flip side of the argument is that if you call Postscript
> documents "programs", then you can also call plain text documents
> "programs" in a language in which each character is a "command" whose
> semantics are to print that character and advance one space, with a
> few extras for newline, etc.  But it is possible to draw principled
> distinctions here; for instance Postscript is Turing-complete, if run
> on a machine with space for an infinite stack, and the "ASCII command
> set" is not...).

you sure it isn't? it's complete enough to describe how to build a
turing machine... :)

ok, this is getting off-topic. what I wanted to say is we are moving
into an area where all but the computer scientists will just shake
their heads and give us sorry looks. that's not a way to win an
argument, and at the end of the day, a court is just that, right?


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