On Aug 11, 7:20*pm, John Smith wrote:
On 8/11/2010 11:53 AM, K1TTT wrote:



On Aug 11, 5:52 pm, Jim *wrote:
John Smith wrote:
On 8/10/2010 5:39 PM, wrote:
-
* * source
* * 158 KB
* * VEMSA3D_source_11.zip
* *http://rga.googlecode.com/files/VEMSA3D_source_11.zip

* * exe standalone
* * 971 KB
* * VEMSA3D_exe_standalone_11.zip
* *http://rga.googlecode.com/files/VEMS...ndalone_11.zip

* * vemsa3d all downloads:
* *http://code.google.com/p/rga/downloads/list

* * A FLOSS Visual EM Simulator for 3D Antennas
* *http://arxiv.org/abs/1006.0031

* * The RGA project:
* *http://code.google.com/p/rga/

* * Petros SV7BAX
* * Antennas Research Group, Palaia Morsini, Xanthi, Thrace, Hellas, EU
* * -Not-for-Profit-

Well, that certainly allows "the little guy" to view the code and
extract the important parameters, math and formulas so that they can
construct their own specialized tools! *Just a bit of understanding how
math is defined by a computer language and you are good-to-go.

Regards,
JS

One wonders why they converted Richmond's older code rather than NEC2.
Both are available as FORTRAN source. *Even NEC4 source is readily
available these days, although not for free (so it wouldn't necessarily
meet their FLOSS objective.. I'm not sure.. they wouldn't be copying it,
they'd be converting it, by hand, to C++, and I think that would break
the "proprietary" link)

Maybe Richmond's code does insulation? or wires in a conductive medium?

the proprietaryness(is that a word?) or the copyright status may not
be broken by changing language if the algorithms are claimed as the
actual intellectual property... the code is just an implementation of
it, no matter what the language. *There would be no need to convert
the fortran anyway, there are still fortran compilers available and
you could call the fortran computations from any language gui front
end. *i'm doing a project like that now that calls old fortran, c, c+
+, or pascal computation modules from a new c# front end.

I would be really surprised if you could patent math formulas,
equations, etc. *The software which uses them can, obviously, be
patented. Something with is "self-intuitive" or a law of nature just
can't be patented!

Regards,
JS

what is intuitive to you is a patented or copyrighted work from a
lawyer's point of view. while you can't patent or copyright maxwell's
equations you can patent or copyright a method of applying them to
come up with solutions to practical problems. these are common things
now in the software and business world, though some countries have
stopped issuing software patents and others are considering that move
also. but the copyright process is well ingrained in the software
world. So much so that there are specific copyright notices you can
use to specify that you DON'T want to stop anyone from using your
code, just so you don't get bothered by people asking all the time.