> One of the most innovative things that Gmail does is organize your 
> emails into conversations.
[...]  
> It's probably patented though.

Man I hope not.  I've never seen Gmail, I've been thinking
about threading communiation by conversation for a long time.

If i had 3 wishes, I think after

 - cure all disease
 - end world hunger problems

#3 would be REVOKE THE POSSIBILITY TO PATENT IDEAS.



Sorry, ... had to vent... Just found out MP3 is patented
yesterday.  I've been working on an AI project for a number
of years now... (hey, and in Ruby, to be slightly on-topic ;)
...and I have little doubt that if it is ever successful,
suddenly lawyers will come crawling out of the woodwork
with claims on IDEAS that I've independently developed.
If there's any way I can, I want to release EVERYTHING I do
in some way that it CAN NOT be patented (if it isn't already.)

Software patents are like, if you play guitar, Eddie Van Halen
patenting Tapping (two-handed hammer-on technique).  The damned
*IDEA* is the easy part.  It's the implementation that's hard.

Argh.

Ok sorry... 


Regards,

Bill