On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 at 01:06:16, James Hunkins wrote:
(ref: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
>One caution about reverse engineering; while it may be legal to do,
>it is illegal to use 'borrowed' code in other code that you might
>release or resell without permission. In some cases this might also
>include a method of doing something (IE: software patents).
>
>There have been many cases recently where companies were sued for
>having parts of someone else's code in their for sale code.
>
>A concern when changing jobs has to do with this. Someone with
>intimate knowledge of someone's source code is considered risky to
>another company with a similar product. Whether or not it is the
>intention, it is difficult to not re-use code that one has seen else
>where.
Indeed yes.
... and you can be _sure_ the lawyers and courts would not understand
the code. They would have to take the word of programmers, but would a
third party programmer fully understand someone elses code?
I suppose it is just like a judge trying to understand a _perfect_
forgery.
... and at what level does code become unique.
As Marcel said, there is only _one_ way to set serial port baud rates on
the QL.
In a similar way, I find it bizarre that biologists can patent DNA.
> And the original code is copyrighted or the implementation is
>patented, hello fun with the legal system.
Tony
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