Excluded and other middles in licensing

[Paul Rubin]

aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli) writes:
> > Note also from the Heine-Borel theorem that every closed source
> > program can be covered by some finite collection of open source
> > programs.
> 
> Every _compact_ one, surely?  Quoting by heart from old memories, but,
> isn't Heine-Borel about (being able reduce any open covering of X to a
> finite subcovering) <-> (X is compact) ...?

Yeah, whoops, that's what I meant; your old memories are clearer than
mine.  Actually sometimes the definitions and theorems interchange.

I do remember something about Tikhonov's Theorem that says that no
matter how often bounded closed source programs multiply, the product
is still closed source.  So, for example, Adobe Acrobat is still
closed source even if you can download it from Adobe's web site
infinitely often.  But that theorem doesn't apply to noncompact
(i.e. unbounded) closed source programs.  So ordering Microsoft to
release parts of Windows as open source was one of the potential
remedies discussed in the penalty phase of the US Justice Dept's
antitrust suit.  Unfortunately, the DoJ lawyers were not good
topologists so they didn't give enough consideration to this
possibility.