Paul M Foster wrote:
>
> IANAL.
>
> You can only copyright the expression of something. You can only patent
> the underlying structure. Now of course, if you take a piece of code and
> just change all the variable names, it's likely that the copyright owner
> can make a good case for copyright infringement.
>
> In response to your direct question, I know of no tool that analyzes the
> structure of two pieces of code to determine whether they substantially
> represent the same idea. That said, though, a binary diff of the
> executables might turn up this fact. Simply changing variable names
> would not substantially effect the binary, since variable names are
> really stored as pointers or actual values.
Good point.
> I'm not sure what your ultimate point is, though. In the Open Source
> world, there isn't much concern about whether this code ultimately came
> from someone else or not. The general idea is that code is for sharing,
> and as a courtesy, we acknowledge the contributions of those who
> originated the code. In this sense, Open Source coding is like
> scientific inquiry, at least the way it used to be done. Discoveries
> were openly shared, in the interest of others expanding upon them and
> widening the general sphere of knowledge.
Again, well said. But the wide-spread popular notion is that software
is not a shared commodity but a functional tool that can be bought and
sold. And the protection of the source code is what drives this
commercial notion. The question ultimately is whether the notion of
software commercialization can be separated from source code secrecy.
> But it sounds as though you're attempting to solve a specific problem.
> I'll assume it's like this: You write some code, you release it under
> some Open Source license, someone else captures that code, perhaps
> augments it, and makes a fortune off of it. Meanwhile, you struggle
> along in your programmer's hovel, trying to eke out a living. And you
> want to somehow level the playing field. Does that sound right?
No, I just posed it for general discussion, not for personal reasons.
But I bet there are a fair number, maybe listening in on SLUG, that have
met with this potential duplicity. Can you be true to open source
ideals and still expect to profit? I suppose that's why I lean toward
the BSD model. Even better, it would be great to be in a position to
sell your software and still dictate the terms of eventually opening the
source.
> cut
>
> But it sounds like part of your problem is really the difference between
> patents and copyrights. The problem is that, for a given software
> problem, there really isn't an infinity of _workable_ solutions. If you
> want to loop through something, you really only have a few ways to do
> it right. And unfortunately, many software solutions are only solved in
> really one way. For example: b-tree code. There really is only one way
> to do it. You can add caches and various bells and whistles, but in the
> end, a b-tree is still a b-tree. How you get from point A to point B can
> be patented, but now you've really cut off innovation entirely.
>>>cut
This is the meat of the issue as I see it. It isn't the algorithms, or
the general implementation that is unique and therefore worth secreting
away; with enough dollars, that can be reproduced. It's the ability to
hide API's and change code to the competitive advantage of the owner.
> Companies like Xerox, IBM, Intel and others most likely employ people
> who study competitors' technology to determine if it has been
> "appropriated". And even then, there's no guarantee you can make the
> case. An example is OpenDOS, which was built in a clean room environment
> to mimic the functionality of MSDOS. The builders of OpenDOS arrived at
> the same place as MSDOS, but did so only by studying the outward
> manifestations of MSDOS. They could not be prosecuted, since they did
> not have access to the prior MSDOS code. They effectively built a
> typewriter only be observing people typing on one, not by taking one
> apart. Of course, Microsoft fixed them by coding various hidden
> "gotchas" into MSDOS at the next rev. As a result, various versions of
> Windows 3.X returned spurious errors when run on top of OpenDOS, even
> though functionally, the two were nearly identical. (I love people who
> defend Microsoft; they conveniently forget incidents like this, which
> mark Microsoft as a dishonest bully.)
I haven't been around computers long enough to remember this, but it
fits the issue. And that issue is, "for a large company that already
has a significant presence in a software category, is copy protection
really the main issue for keeping the source code under lock and key?"
-Robert
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