On Wed, 10 Oct 2012, Jim Klimov wrote:
Hello all,
I was at an Oracle presentation regarding Solaris 11, and they
did mention a number of features which I think appeared after the
code split. Some sound like ideas simple enough to be recreated
without using their source and just make a look-alike, with any
other conincidence being purely coincidental.
The main question is IMHO legalese FUD: if we go this path and
recreate in illumos from scratch look-alikes of nifty features
and minor improvements that were created elsewhere, are such
works vulnerable to lawsuits?
There is more than enough FUD to go around. It is damaging and
unhealthy.
Developing software which is works compatibly with some other software
(even to the API level) is quite normal and not to be feared. This
practice has been supported by court of law in the US and EU,
including major recent decisions.
Patents and copyrights are to be feared.
Many/most features developed are not patentable and without access to
source code to copy, copyright is not an issue.
If a developer re-implements a feature he previously implemented at
prior company (from memory) then there is risk because trade secrets
could be involved.
Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
[email protected], http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
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