Legal/Permission Question

[Walter Bright]

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>>
>> If you're going to clone a function, you can't use someone else's 
>> copyrighted code as a guide. Even just looking at it could cause 
>> 'taint', which is why I never look at or work on gcc.
> 
> The whole situation is kind of a mess.  Say a programmer creates a 
> parser for one company and then later is hired by another company for 
> which he also produces a parser.  Assuming the first company retains the 
> rights to the parser created there, the programmer has no way to avoid 
> 'taint'.  Worse, a person tends to solve a given problem in a consistent 
> fashion, so two applications created from scratch by the same person 
> will naturally have structural similarities.  And whether or not a case 
> concerning this could hold up in court, there is enough confusion about 
> copyright law that it can actually come up.  Truth be told, I've 
> considered leaving the professional software sector altogether and do 
> this purely as a hobby simply to avoid such issues.

That's a serious issue, and I've been faced with it. I decided the easy 
way (but on the expensive side) was to negotiate a license. That way, 
everyone's happy.