Ugly Huge BSD Monster

[Bill Moran]

Mark Murray wrote:
> Bill Moran writes:
> 
>>>Lawsuits are how you _defend_, not how you _conduct_.
>>
>>The crux of the problem, however, is where the fine line between defend
>>and conduct lie.
> 
> Sure :-). I am well prepared to concede that there is a rich field
> of Grey Area(tm) to play in.
> 
>>If I write a program that does something totally unique (hard to imagine
>>in this day and age, but bear with me) and market it.  Then somone else
>>makes a program that does the exact same thing (although, written from
>>scratch), have they violated my rights?  Should I defend myself?
> 
> Legally, if you have patented your idea/code, then the priveliges
> granted to you (others may call those "rights" ;-) ) would suggest you
> have a defendable case.
> 
>>In my opinion, no.  They're allowed to write competing software.
> 
> In the absence of a patent, sure.

Well.  There may be grey areas withing this one example.  But I don't
consider the law the Book of Rightness.  Just because I have a legal
right to sue someone doesn't mean I'm going to.  And, in most cases
I can imagine that fall into this category, I'm not likely to sue -
because of my own personal beliefs.

The one exception would be if I created something, didn't bother to
get a patent on it, and then someone else patented the idea.  Before
they could ever get around to filing a patent lawsuit, I would file
some sort of suit claiming they had obtained the patent illegally.
It's possibly that I would lose such a case, and that I'd be much
better off just filing patents and not bothering to enforce them when
I don't feel it's the right thing to do.

>>If I write this program, and someone reverse engineers part or all of
>>my code (or steals the source, etc) and markets that, should I defend?
>>In my opinion, yes.  In that case, they are stealing my work, not my
>>ideas.
> 
> DMCA.
> 
> If I reverse engineer your work, and then write _completeley_new_
> and better code to do the same thing, where are we?
> 
> If I take apart your mousetrap to see what oil you use on the hinges,
> where are we?
> 
> If I do chemical analysis of your mousetrap's spring to improve the 
> spring in my gronkulators, where are we?

See ... these are the situations that freak me out ... mainly because
some of these I'm not sure if I feel I would be right in filing a case
or not.  If I'm gonna do something, I prefer to feel that it's the
right thing to do.

>>Altough other people would consider me wrong for my opinion on the second
>>circumstance.  Right or wrong, these differences of opinion are the
>>basis for this whole argument and many others that are relevent to our
>>profession.
> 
> Agreed. Where abominations like DMCA, and lesser abominations like
> software patents fail is where liars^Wlawyers make their livings,
> and where disreputable "inventors" grovel in their shite for easy
> money.

What a world.  How much easier it would be if everyone just tried to
be honest and get along with others.  Alas, it's not to be.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com