Free?

[Timon Gehr]

On 10/26/2011 11:38 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:28:21 -0400, Kagamin <spam at here.lot> wrote:
>
>> Steven Schveighoffer Wrote:
>>
>>> patents exist to give an *incentive* to give away trade secrets that
>>> would
>>> otherwise die with the inventor. The idea is, if you patent something,
>>> you enjoy a period of monopoly, where you can profit from the fruits of
>>> your invention.
>>
>> I think, this can work for software the same way.
>
> You can profit from the fruits of your invention *without* patents. You
> can with machines as well, but software has the added bonus that
> copyright protects your IP.
>
> But it's much harder to reverse engineer how someone built a machine
> than it is to reverse engineer how software is built.

If it is, for example, a remote web service, reverse engineering is 
difficult.