Re: AIML IP protection?

In the past years, I've became more and more interested in software licenses
and software patents - but I should still mention that I am not a lawyer.

Generally, I think that saying that "AIML is GPLed" is not really
appropriate, because the GPL is only applicable to software - a concrete
implementation. The -idea- of AIML as a language and the algorithms used
probably aren't even licensable - patentable at most (and if there were some
patents associated with AIML, which to my best knowledge are none, then you
could license the right to implement those patents).

What is licensable are the various implementations (like Program D,
Pandorabots...) and each program has it's own license (but nothing prevents
you to write your own). What is also licensable is the text of the
specification itself - but very probably not using the GPL (whose terms are
applicable only to sofware), but more likely something like the GFDL or
Creative Commons - but again this only applies to the text of the
specification, not to the ideas contained therein (unless they are patended,
which they aren't).

So, to sum it up - AIML is not protected by any patents (in fact, the ALICE
AI Foundation is more or less opposed to software patents, see
http://www.alicebot.org/patents.html ), and I don't even think that the AIML
acronym or "alicebot" are registered trademarks. So, even though the GPL
isn't IMHO aplicable to the specification, AIML is for all practical
purposes unencumbered by any intellectual property rights.

Regards,
Kim

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