ai category archive

Celebrating Software Freedom Day: Check out some newly emancipated AI Java example code

An objection I’ve had to many programming books and web sites is that they don’t make sample code available under a free software license. This is within the rights of the author, of course, but it seems counter to the spirit of teaching and sharing knowledge to restrict the use of example code.

A writer of instructional material may be doing so to earn some money, but I hope he or she is also motivated by the desire to help others. I think the best authors and teachers are motivated strongly by this desire. And if this is the case, I think it reasonably follows that the author of a programming work should want their students to be able to freely use their source code in the students’ own creations.

I was happy to exchange words recently with an …