>> You can copyright text, layouts, etc. This means that if you copyright your
>> software, then someone can't make something else that is 'strikingly
>> similar'. They can copy the idea, but not the 'expression' as someone else
>> put it. It is also illegal to reverse engineer and re-use code, as someone
>> did to us.
>
>Obviously you shouldn't rip the code or pull the resources from someone's
>project without their permission. That is unethical and illegal if the
>author hasn't explicitly granted you this permission in his license. But I
>cannot agree at all that it is a copyright violation to produce a free
>work-alike of a popular piece of software -- assuming it was done using
>"clean room" methods. That happens all the time, and for good reason. Free
>software is good!
I don't know exactly what you mean by work-alike, but copying someone's
interface IS illegal and unethical. Clean-rooming an application usually
refers to having people that HAVEN'T seen how something works make
something that does the exact same thing. It is practically impossible that
a developer who HASN'T seen a UI would have theirs look the same way.
Besides, a good program had lots of UI planning, and that's part of the
effort that goes into programming, UI Design. You can't just rip it off...
I certainly agree that it's great if a freeware author makes an acceptable
subsitute for a particular application, but it CAN BE DONE WITHOUT
VIOLATING someone else's intellectual property. Just because a freeware
author copies a useful app and doesn't charge his customers doesn't mean
that he's not financially damaging the original commercial author.
Alan Pinstein
Synergy Solutions, Inc.
http://www.synsolutions.com
1-800-210-5293
