Free?

[Chante]

"Nick Sabalausky" <a at a.a> wrote in message 
news:j81vad$1pl0$1 at digitalmars.com...
> "Chante" <udontspamme at never.will.u> wrote in message 
> news:j81ur0$1oij$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>
>> "Jonathan M Davis" <jmdavisProg at gmx.com> wrote in message 
>> news:mailman.350.1319394157.24802.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>>>
>>> LOL. I don't think that it has anything to do with a capitalist 
>>> anything. It's
>>> going purely by the definition of viral. In the case of the GPL, 
>>> because it's
>>> viral, it affects everything that it comes into contact wtih.
>>
>> Not just everyTHING, but also "infects" everyONE who "comes in contact 
>> with it". Of course one can say the same for programmers who have 
>> worked for a software company. The risk of having foreign code that is 
>> patented or viral creeping into a pristine codebase isn't worth the 
>> risk (IMO) of hiring "tainted" programmers.
>
> Meh, thanks to the corrupt USPTO, all code is covered by one patent or 
> another...programmer taint or not.
>

While I haven't thought it through (and maybe don't have the knowledge to 
do so), elimination of software patents was something I had in mind as a 
potential cure for the current state of affairs (not a cure for viral 
source code though). Of course, noting that first-to-file is now the 
thing, it appears (to me) that Big Software Corp and Big Government are 
on one side, humanity on the other.

>> Young programmers/programmer-wannabes need to consider this before 
>> signing-on to get that paycheck. Once "tainted", they most likely will 
>> never be able to become "untainted" (there are cures, but they are 
>> very unlikely to be enacted).
>>
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