[Tomte]

My experience with bug reports to Knuth were mixed, although number one obviously was most important to me.

I got $2.56 for an error in content in one of his books. Actually the very first word in the very first sentence on the very first page (well, Arabic 1) was wrong. At least nobody can claim that he didn't get that far!

I got another $0.32 for a bug report which he actually demonstrated to be invalid, though he counted it as some kind of input or improvement. Oh, and he threw in a T-Shirt with the MMIX instruction set!

The third bug report was turned down without explanation (I think he actually replied "sorry, but no cigar").

The fourth bug report was also turned down and I even felt a bit insulted: his MMIX book says on the back cover that all programs are in the public domain, even though they all carry copyright notices with restrictions.

Knuth accused me quite harshly (IMO) to be some kind of Stallman fan talking nonsense about licenses and did not acknowledge the bug.

[ssprang]

> Knuth accused me quite harshly (IMO) to be some kind of Stallman fan talking nonsense about licenses and did not acknowledge the bug.

Strange. Knuth appears to be a significant GNU supporter: http://www.gnu.org/thankgnus/2014supporters.html

[Tomte]

I guess he had a bad day or whatever. Or maybe I read too much into what he wrote.