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From: "Thumper!" <thumper@vfr.interceptor.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX)
Date: Tue, 07 May 1996 20:58:53 -0700
Organization: Interceptor Systems
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <31901BFD.7BAC@vfr.interceptor.com>
References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com> <31866E12.67FD83BE@lambert.org> <4m8k99$o12@master.di.fc.ul.pt> <318978E8.14B8@vfr.interceptor.com> <4mmhcj$dfr@news1.halcyon.com>
Reply-To: thumper@vfr.interceptor.com
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:23315 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:935 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3689 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3528 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:18952 comp.os.linux.advocacy:48469
Tim Smith wrote:
>
> Thumper! <thumper@vfr.interceptor.com> wrote:
> >Even if you own the product, it is ILLEGAL for you to use that information to
> >engineer your own product, whether it be compatible or not (ie, using the
> >information to learn from is illegal as well).
>
> [I'm assuming United States law in this posting]
>
> In general, this is incorrect. If you don't want someone to be able to
> legally reverse engineer your product, you've got to get them to
> contractually agree to not reverse engineer it. For non-software
> products, there is not much you can do to stop reverse engineering,
> except get patents to cover the essentials of your product, or make
> sure that you are careful who you sell to. If it's going to be a mass
> marketed product that any schmoe can go and buy at the supermarket or
> hardware store, patents are about the only protection you can hope
> for.
That would sadly imply that software is unprotectable. Commercial software, GNU,
GPL, etc, are meaningless, because it's therefore legal to take someone's product,
take it apart to see how it works, and then derive your own work partially, or even
entirely, from that work, and proceed to legally sell your own work. That would
also apply to hardware as well; just take apart an Intel CPU, make a copy, and
build your own. After all, why should patents offer protection that copyright
doesn't?
Consider this: a screenwirter writes a movie. Someone else takes his script,
reads the scripts, makes changes, and produces the movie. Is the screenwriter
entitled to anything?
--
Thumper! Leporidae Extraordinhare
thumper@vfr.interceptor.com http://www.interceptor.com/~thumper
"Life is to achieve the impossible"