Re: 'GPL encumbrance problems'

On Thu, 2006-01-19 at 03:08 -0600, Mike McCarty wrote:
> One issue with this is in deployment in concert with development.
> Let's say that a company is going to build a new device, and wants
> to put an OS on an embedded computer, and develop some applications
> to run on it. This company does not want to divulge its trade
> secrets to the whole world for copying. Special techniques which
> may, for example, allow a cell phone to use lower power and still
> achieve good range, hence not cooking your brain.

Do you really think that competitors can't do that without access to the
source code? Taking that example as a case in point, spectrum analysers
allow us to check what RF eminates from a device, oscilloscopes allow us
to look at waveforms within a device, data analysers allow us to read
digital data going about its business in a device, and so on.

Taking other examples: Anybody can buy the circuit diagram to a
television set, and from that you can replicate it for less effort than
the original designers. Yet TV sets are still sold, and so are the
circuits. The same with the electronics that make up the telephone
systems.

Car manufacturers buy a car from the opposition, pull it apart, and use
what they find to improve their own models. Their competition does the
same thing. They know it and don't care, because any of them that
produced an exact replica would look pretty silly and get the scorn they
deserve.

Closed/open source doesn't make it im/possible to earn a living from
producing a product. And whether your competition works out how you
built it, or you hand them the information, doesn't make a huge amount
of difference. Trade secrets exist more in the mind than reality.

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