Free?

[Chante]

"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:op.v3zaemhyeav7ka at localhost.localdomain...
> 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.

It does not? The engineered concepts are not protected by copyright, 
AFAIK, and THAT is what the IP is. THAT is what took all those years of 
R&D. So with copyright, someon can paraphrase the source code and then 
the inventor is SOL?