At 11:12 AM 4/20/00 -0700, you wrote:
>The ONLY reason I originally posted was because the copyright and patent
>laws of our country suck, but our country's ethics don't?....Go try to
>"knock
>off" a song, book or corporate logo...etc.
I take it you've never heard the phrase "inspired by." Songs, books, and
logos are all derivative. Whether you incorporate an idea from a work or
deliberately avoid it, all songs, books, and logos have pieces taken from
multiple sources, even if unintentionally. There is very little new ground
to cover in any of these fields EXCEPT which sources new work draws from.
Of course, in those fields it's a sign of a good work to have someone draw
from your ideas. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, remember?
As a writer, I can tell you that when you write there are certain things
that you do. You present work in a format appropriate to the subject
matter, in language appropriate to the subject matter, in a way that you
think appeals to the intended reader. Applying the same theory to this
discussion, this other company has drawn from your company's ideas and made
what they think are improvements. They make these improvements by drawing
from other sources. They have used a format that suits the intention of the
product and fits the intended user. If your product does the same thing and
has the same intended user, they are likely to be similar. That isn't theft
of ideas, that's completely natural. People can call it a knock-off, but
knock-offs don't include improvements. They probably call it a knock-off
because it seems similar. If you have a problem with this, I have to wonder
why. It's not like they went in and stole your source code or it would be
against the contracts they were under when they got the source, and
therefore illegal. Open source doesn't mean you can take code out of it and
incorporate it into a product. They built upon a good idea that already
existed, but they added to the idea. And you sound very threatened by that.
While your AuctionBuilder product may be very valuable, if you are
threatened by AbleCommerce competition, that is the sign of a problem with
the product. While focusing your company's efforts on this auction product
and '*away* from AbleCommerce, which is what you are implying, AbleCommerce
will lose technological ground. Instead of resting on your laurels, you
could innovate with AbleCommerce-- add new features, make it more flexible,
incorporate better techniques to get the same job done. It might delay the
release of AuctionBuilder, but in the meantime, you wouldn't be losing
ground. Allaire certainly didn't stop at ColdFusion version 1 or even
version 2.
Everyday people decide on new things to do on their websites; if your
product can't keep up you will lose ground in the market and have only
yourself to blame.
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