On Sat, Feb 14, 2004 at 02:54:42PM -0600, AMAZING POWERS OF OBSERVATION wrote: > On Sat, 2004-02-14 at 14:02, M.Hockings wrote: [...] > > I would not be so confident that the above is true. Say you were to > > obtain and view the MS source code ( in fact you may not even have > > looked at it but simply possess it you cannot prove that you have not > > examined at all of it). Say that you then wrote and published some > > piece of software, for you or your employer. If MS had the inclination > > (maybe your software competes with something they are doing or wish to > > do) they could examine your published product for "similarities" with > > their own code and start legal proceedings if they find any. Yes, I > > know that reverse-engineering is prohibited in most license agreements > > but it happens anyway. > > Don't be fooled into thinking that this does not happen, I *know* that > > it does. [...] > > If you are a software developer it would be best not to even peek at the > > leaked code (IMHO). > thats a bit of a stretcher isn't it ? Can you spell SCO? I knew you could! >:-/ Simply put: If a company like MS sees a chance to sue developers of Open Source Projects or companies supporting those projects, I'm sure they will, regardless of whether they'll win or not. At the very least they might be able to delay a few things and in the worst case stop them entirely. Given the deep pockets they have, they'd be stupid not to try this. Hence, I agree with the statement that one should steer well clear of that code if one is involved in any OS project. Cheerio, Thomas -- ===> Netiquette - read it, use it: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html <=== ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas Ribbrock http://www.ribbrock.org "You have to live on the edge of reality - to make your dreams come true!"
