[bdowling]

How to make shredded wheat has been publicly known since at least 1895. [0]. How to make it efficiently at large scale is a trade secret that the company invested in and has a right to protect. None of this is related at all to the teaching of differential equations.

[0] https://patents.google.com/patent/US548086A/en

[bsedlm]

again, on my own very stretchy way of thinking (which involves big leaps in reasoning). you're saying that a company has a right to protect its secrets, but I'm hearing something comparable to (e.g.) "colonialist superpowers have the right to enslave people from Africa". I suppose I may be tuning into a moral ethical-framework from the future when I take 'offense' by the "rightful" actions of companies to keep knowledge bound and locked.

the relation is ideological, cultural (in the sense of being close to the intention of); not direct, causal, material (in the sense of relating to the actual implementation).