When I first looked, I though "Boy, that's infringment." But then I thought about it a bit more. All we know right now is that they use the same shortcuts.
IMHO, one can't complain that DQSD created a set of shortcuts and this person/company decided to follow them as a user interface *standard*. If we could, there would be thousands of situations like this. Everything from the steering wheel to the remote control, from Instant Messengers to Word Processors are based on a common user interaction that (intend to) allow easy transition from one brand to another. If this is in fact the only thing this company did, I don't think there is a basis for action. Alternatively if they indeed used code from DQSD, they are bound by the GPL to release their source code (if I understand the GPL correctly). However, as long as they release that code, they are allowed to charge whatever they want to "distribute" the product. Although, I'm no lawyer and reading the GPL makes my eyes water. Don't assume I'm correct - I don't. -Dan -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Glenn Carr Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 8:00 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [DQSD-Devel] "Search Toolbar" > I had a look at it - it seems inspired by our favorite tool, however the > fact that it's lacking a lot of the more important/useful > functionality (for > example, the calculator) It's there, toward the bottom: http://www.searchtoolbar.com/shortcuts.html > leads me to believe that it's not using DQSD code > directly. I don't really think it's using the source code either, but it could be, especially the ActiveX portion. > I did a simple hex search through the dll for any of the text > that might be > seen as incriminating, and didn't find any (for example, searches > for carr, > glenn, bau, all turned up nothing) Of course that doesn't mean that those > strings aren't in there in some other format. There wouldn't be too many strings you could search for in a release build. > The search thing is pretty simple to do, it's not as if it takes huge > amounts of time to bang out a bunch of searches, in whatever > format they're > using internally, so it's not inconceivable that they came up > with the idea > independently. IMO, there are just too many coincidences for it to be an original idea, but I guess it's possible. > Of course the deleted thread in their forums makes me a little > suspicious :) > > Hopefully before anyone spends the $29.99 on it, they find the > far superior > DQSD tool. Free, extendable, much much better (especially with > the awesome > search wizard...) Agreed. ;) > > Greg. ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by: Jabber - The world's fastest growing real-time communications platform! Don't just IM. Build it in! http://www.jabber.com/osdn/xim _______________________________________________ DQSD-Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dqsd-devel ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by: Jabber - The world's fastest growing real-time communications platform! Don't just IM. Build it in! http://www.jabber.com/osdn/xim _______________________________________________ DQSD-Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dqsd-devel
