Re: Wolfram|Alpha Lookup Tool for Mathematica
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg100044] Re: Wolfram|Alpha Lookup Tool for Mathematica
- From: dbreiss at gmail.com
- Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 01:47:05 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <gum0br$q3a$1@smc.vnet.net> <gv0gra$a6f$1@smc.vnet.net>
On May 20, 11:59 pm, AES <sieg... at stanford.edu> wrote: > In article <gv0gra$a6... at smc.vnet.net>, > mark mcclure <mcmcc... at unca.edu> wrote: > > > On May 16, 5:17 am, David Reiss <dbre... at gmail.com> wrote: > > > With the release of Wolfram|Alpha I have created a small tool that > > > allows you to send a query to Wolfram|Alpha directly from > > > Mathematica. > > > Unfortunately, this is clearly against the terms of use: > >http://www.wolframalpha.com/termsofuse.html > > Wolfram|Alpha may or may not be one of the greatest computer tools to > emerge in our time (to be quite honest, I'm frankly hoping it's not). > > But this "Terms of Us" document, circa 3000 words long and containing I > believe it's nine links leading to God knows how many additional words > of similar legalese, has to be among the nuttiest, or looniest, > documents appearing on the web in some time. > > And it's this general looniness, also exhibited in other recent Terms of > Use on Wolfram websites, not to mention in other broader policies, that > makes me express the unfriendly hope I did above. ...actually, the links are mostly to the other sections of the (yes, long) document itself... but it is a daunting text; and probably an interesting one for lawyers. This is an interesting discussion: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/19/1846258&art_pos=1 and it is a bit less reactive and adolescent than many of the ones on SlashDot... and it is based on this discussion: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story090518204959409 --Daivd