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Date:      Sat, 15 May 1999 00:21:19 -0500 (EST)
From:      Alfred Perlstein <bright@rush.net>
To:        Jason Garman <garman@earthling.net>
Cc:        John Baldwin <jobaldwi@vt.edu>, Chris Costello <chris@calldei.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, kuehl@lgk.de, "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net>, cjclark@home.com, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
Subject:   Re: Richard Stallman came to town
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.990514222006.26546j-100000@cygnus.rush.net>
In-Reply-To: <19990514221109.F13575@fw.garman.net>

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On Fri, 14 May 1999, Jason Garman wrote:

> On Fri, May 14, 1999 at 09:08:01AM -0400, John Baldwin wrote:
> > 
> > And you are confusing practical with technically possible.  If one customer
> > takes your source and puts it up an ftp server and announces it to the world,
> > then you just lost a very good portion of your sales.
> > 
> ... and this is somehow different from someone posting binaries on an ftp
> server and announcing it to the world?  why does source suddenly make this
> so much more of a threat?  if nothing more, the binaries would be more of
> a threat because they usually have a flashy installer utility and such
> included, while the straight source release probably won't.

Sometimes trade secrets are important, especially when they put you
ahead of the competition.  I've coded a library that extracted a 
person's information from an unforamatted document containing that
information.  If someone pirated a binary of this library it would 
stink, but could be prosecuted.  If the source was somehow put out, 
the chances of the company keeping that 'edge' would be lost.  It
_is_ a technical advantage, a propriatary algorithm.

There is a difference.  

I don't agree that everything should be open source, but I do belive 
that after a certain period it is only decent to offer a source license.

Companies that require NDAs to get hardware specs are hereby banished 
to the wasteland.

-Alfred



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