Alan Pinstein wrote:
>
> It is
> using the unfair means that is most damaging; the original author set up a
> BARRIER TO ENTRY by being innovative with UI and functionality, and if
> someone rips that off then they are stealing the original author's
> intellectual property.
"Functionality" deserves no protection, and I don't think there's
anything even remotely unethical about duplicating functionality in
another product. It's distasteful if the copycat doesn't "add value" to
a concept, but not unethical. Look-and-feel is obviously a trickier
issue. I think that sometimes, copying UI is unethical, sometimes not,
depending upon the particulars of the products involved. With the Palm
in particular, I'm less sympathetic to UI protectionist arguments, since
there is simply less room for UI variation, given the screen's form
factor -- there's only so many ways a particular interface goal could be
accomplished.
> I don't think that it matters if it's freeare or shareware or whatever, so
> keep that in mind. I'm not against freeware, just cheap, illegal, unethical
> imitation.
Freeware is a particular focus because freeware almost always wins in
price/performance comparisons. As an example, I use some freeware
instead of commercial alternatives because, every though the commercial
software is better, the freeware is adequate and you can't beat the
price. And often, the commercial software isn't better.
I don't believe there is anything unethical about imitation, although I
understand the frustration an author can feel when he discovers that his
hard work has suddenly become unprofitable.
I agree that if an author, freeware or not, has stolen code or violated
copyrights/licenses/contracts, then that author is a Bad Person and the
victim is just that -- a victim. I don't agree that simply duplicating
the functionality or even, in some cases, UI elements of a program
counts as theft.
For the record, I'm not a freeware author :)
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John Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://presys.com/~johnm/
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