Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 10:07:52 08/24/05
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On August 24, 2005 at 12:49:55, Rolf Tueschen wrote: >Basic question: > >isn't it absurd that the commercial programs have the open sources for improving >but that they themselves dont give away new ideas? What indications do you have >that these secretive commercials have anything original at all and NOT only >clever applications of known ideas out of public sources? Up until recently, they have been far stronger than the amateurs. >Or is it for you a convincing situation if a commercial wins repeatedly a >tournament? > >Could you add a few clarifying lines? The same thing is true for every software endeavor. Does Intel C++ borrow from GCC? Does Macintosh OS/X borrow from Linux? We don't know the answers to these things but hope that the commercial vendors are honest. Now, some kinds of borrowing are legally fine. The fundamental algorithms belong to no one (unless there is a patent). So a new method of doing things can be learned and used legally. Other kinds of borrowing are not legally fine. I expect that most software vendors will not try them because there is too much risk involved. I work at a software company and we use only BSD or ACE type licences (which means that you can use it for anything you like and you must state that you used it). For other product license styles like LGPL, the wording is ambiguous and a bit risky. Likely it would be safe, but we won't even try it. Sharing of software ideas is an idea that goes back to the 1950s and 1960s (the origin of software design, really). Look at the publications of the ACM and you will see that early on people published algorithms for the sheer joy of their discovery. If you want to fully protect your software ideas, there are several choices: 1. Trade secret -- you simply don't tell anyone what you are doing. This one is kind of sad because your techniques might vanish forever 2. Patent the algorithm -- this one is kind of sad because algorithms are very much mathematical entities and math belongs to no one. Beyond that there are partial protections like Copyright, GPL, LGPL, BSD, etc. I do not know of any great solutions that are all inclusive and probably they are not possible.
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