Free?

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:09:52 -0400, Chante <udontspamme at never.will.u>  
wrote:

>
> "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?

You think the "one click" design took years of R&D, and not the building  
of the amazon site?

Again, "paraphrasing" is not so easy with software. Whether you are good  
or not, it takes a long time to write good software.  You really think  
patents are the reason people don't copy large software projects?

Think about DVD "encryption" that was used to protect DVDs from copying.   
Although it was a poor encryption and once cracked, was ridiculed for its  
simplicity and ease of circumvention, it still was very successful in  
preventing people from copying DVDs.  It was a long time before someone  
actually cracked it.  Is that because of patents?  No, it was because the  
encryption was a trade secret, only handed out to those who could pay a  
hefty sum and promised not to use it to make copies or divulge it to any  
third party.

Software is HARD to reverse engineer (even though it's definitely  
possible), and its HARD to replicate without direct copying.  One has to  
go from binary code all the way back to the design/spec, and then go  
forward to a completely rewritten, tested, and well developed product.  We  
are talking a huge investment of time and effort, all the time while the  
original author has since improved their product.

Your statements appear to employ hand-waving to describe the tedious  
process of making a legal re-implementation of software.  Yes, copyright  
protects your investment and your effort, more so than patents.  Trade  
secrets actually are better than patents to protect you because you aren't  
forced to divulge it to the world.

-Steve