On 10/26/2011 11:38 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:28:21 -0400, Kagamin <s...@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.
But it's much harder to reverse engineer how someone built a machine
than it is to reverse engineer how software is built.
If it is, for example, a remote web service, reverse engineering is
difficult.
