
Reverse engineering of competitor’s software cost company big - sidcool
http://blog.internetcases.com/2017/10/24/reverse-engineering-of-competitors-software-cost-company-big/
======
rhn_mk1
This decision does not lie well with me.

Of course, the competitor agreed not to reverse engineer the software - under
the definition "attempting to produce a copy", they definitely did reverse
engineer.

But does that mean that re-implementing the same interface is reverse-
engineering? That would be scary and terrible for competition.

No software with a reverse-engineering clause could have a clone. Does Windows
have one? If yes, Wine developers could not compare if a game works under Wine
correctly.

What about APIs? Is it forbidden for US citizens to create NVIDIA CUDA clones
now? If someone found a way to reproduce some Photoshop image filter, is it
forbidden to compare the resuls? MS Word-produced files?

I really don't like where this is going. Thankfully, reverse engineering
cannot be forbidden in the EU (unless I'm wrong).

EDIT: I guess my main gripe is that if the owners of proprietary "standards"
which achieved monopoly can effectively forbid any alternatives, cementing the
monopolies.

~~~
jVinc
The main point here is that they acquired a license for the software with
explicit purpose reverse engineering the language, even though the license
forbid that.

If they had "just" implemented a clone without getting a licence from SAS,
then they likely wouldn't be in trouble.

"Is it forbidden for US citizens to create NVIDIA CUDA clones now" No, but if
you download a free piece of software with a license that forbids you from
using it to create a clone of NVIDIA CUDA, and you agree to the license and
you do just that... well then you breach the license you agreed to. It's not a
blanket ban on every case of reverse engineering, just a case of WPL shooting
themselves in the foot in an obvious manor.

~~~
phil21
So you're just saying it's effectively illegal to reverse engineer pretty much
anything. So long as the company in question put a magical paragraph of text
in their EULA?

I just don't buy this. There is literally no way to build a CUDA clone without
testing output against both your clone and CUDA itself.

With this reading, EULA's have effectively banned cloning any form of
software.

~~~
RhodesianHunter
This is very similar to the dilema of drug manufacturers and generics to me.
On one hand without a strong financial incentive you won't have big companies
investing in the original pieces of software.

On the other hand at a certain point it becomes a monopoly with a negative
societal impact.

~~~
philipkglass
Drug manufacturers get patents and a corresponding period of exclusivity. This
is worse than patents in some ways because there's no time limit. It's like
drug manufacturers could attach a EULA to their pills that makes reverse-
engineering a competing product a legally enforceable contract violation _even
after_ the relevant patents expire.

~~~
uxp
I don't buy this. "It's like drug manufacturers could attach a EULA to their
pills that makes reverse-engineering a competing product a legally enforceable
contract violation _even after_ the relevant patents expire."

You've gone from "Drug manufacturers get patents and a period of exclusivity"
to "Patent and exclusivity, and also protection from generics for the brand's
life", but patents can be applied for at any time during a drugs development,
including before it's ever been synthesized (e.g., theoretical manufacture via
computer models) but the exclusivity is only a U.S. FDA marketing feature.
Patents on a drug could expire before the exclusivity, so a competing
manufacturer could create a secondary brandname drug and sell it overseas
during that period. I'm really confused as to where this EULA would even fit
in, since you've just moved the goalposts with your "even after" clause.

If the FDA had some kind of deterministic human trial of a drug, like some
dystopian lab-grown identical human clones, of which drugs were trialled on
and some company B was able to obtain a set of these clones from company A
that had some kind of defect of which the drug was targeting as a cure or
remedy for, and then used those proprietary clone models in order to test
their clone drug against, we might have some kind of metaphor worth arguing
against, but we don't.

------
ballenf
The real lesson here is that they should have pirated the SAS software instead
of licensing it. Then they would have been liable for at most a large fine
instead of having their business shut down.

If the license was tightly integrated with the software (meaning even a
pirated copy would require acceptance before use) then just hire an outside
consulting company to generate the output from the test code. It could have
all been documented and left the company with clean hands.

The simplicity of side stepping the license in this case highlights the
absurdity of the ruling.

Not saying SAS wouldn't still sue them, but they wouldn't have nearly as
strong a case with damages less likely to be bankrupting.

~~~
greglindahl
This is generally what lawyers recommend:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design)
\-- although this is generally done to avoid copyright complaints, not license
complaints.

~~~
philipkglass
But per your link "Clean-room design (also known as the Chinese wall
technique) is the method of copying a design by _reverse engineering_ and then
recreating it without infringing any of the copyrights associated with the
original design."

They did reverse engineer the code instead of infringing copyright. The
problem is that it violated a license prohibition on reverse engineering. I'm
not going to claim that the judges interpreted the law _incorrectly_ , but I
think that this legal result is overall bad for society. It means that a
company can stifle competition even if potential competitors avoid violating
copyright or patents.

~~~
jnwatson
If they had pirated the software, then they wouldn't violated a license
prohibition since they wouldn't have agreed to it.

------
DenisM
So, basically poking your competitors software with a stick, being an effort
to understand its inner workings, is reverse-engineering. When prohibited by
EULA it becomes a breach of contract.

It does seem overly broad, this line of reasoning left unchecked would imply
no third-party replacement parts for any device, because you need to
understand the working to make a part...

On the other hand if I am creating some new technology, inhave now gained a
very effective tool to fight the copy-cats. At least the ones who couldn’t
setup a shell company for this exact purpose.

~~~
phkahler
>> So, basically poking your competitors software with a stick, being an
effort to understand its inner workings, is reverse-engineering. When
prohibited by EULA it becomes a breach of contract.

Correct. The problem with that is you might hire someone who has lots of
experience with a product in order to develop a competing one. You have that
person tell you how the new product needs to behave. This is essentially doing
the same thing, but who is violating the "agreement"? At the time the employee
learned about the product, they were a legitimate user with no intent of
reverse engineering. They may or may not have personally accepted the EULA (it
may have been installed by the IT folks). When they go to the new company, who
becomes responsible to any alleged wrong doing? I guess I'm saying there is a
grey area where things boil down to intent rather than action, and that makes
me think it's wrong (on top of the more obvious issues).

On the upside, IIRC there are countries where this activity would be legal and
the enforcement of the EULA terms against it are unenforceable. IANAL, so find
said country(s) and development practices to circumvent this problem on your
own. I think it's unfortunate, but it's exactly the kind of stupid problem
that pushed RMS to start the GNU project.

------
kazinator
_In developing the WPS, defendant did not try to decompile the Learning
Edition, or otherwise “tear it down” or “look under the hood.” Instead, it
would run SAS code through both the Learning Edition and the WPS, evaluate the
outputs from both systems, and tweak the C++ code comprising the WPS to get
the outputs to match._

This is the same as getting Linux to behave like a Unix kernel, or GNU tools
to behave like Unix tools, Wine to behave like Win32 DLL's and so on.

Validating "does my machine produce the same output for the same inputs as
this blackbox" is not reverse engineering. It's just engineering. Reverse
engineering means taking it apart to look inside. Forward engineering means
designing it and building it; reverse means the opposite: disassembling and
inferring the design from the pieces and their relationships.

------
kornish
Key paragraph:

> More specifically, defendant had argued on appeal that the lower court’s
> summary judgment on the breach of contract/reverse engineering claim was
> improper because the term “reverse engineering” in the license agreement was
> ambiguous. Plaintiff and defendant offered competing definitions for what
> they thought reverse engineering ought to mean. Defendant proposed a narrow
> definition – essentially, that reverse engineering must have as its
> objective the re-creation of source code. Plaintiff, however, offered a
> broader definition, encompassing other efforts to “analyze a product to
> learn the details of its design, construction, or production in order to
> produce a copy or improved version.”

(spoiler: court sides with plaintiff)

To what extent can a lawsuit be brought over a system that functions, for many
inputs, in the same way as another, separate system? What's the difference
between reverse engineering and plain old competition?

~~~
rayiner
You can't, in general, bring a lawsuit based on "reverse engineering." This
was a breach of contract lawsuit, where the contract prohibited "reverse
engineering."

~~~
mattnewton
But, can I effectively threaten all similar competition by having a reverse
engineering clause in my EULA?

~~~
rcthompson
Not unless they bought your product and agreed to your EULA.

~~~
mattnewton
But what if I’m a new social network - do I have to hire engineers who aren’t
on Facebook if they have no reverse engineering in their EULA? I’m worrried
about it being yet another legal tool to bludgeon small companies with.

~~~
rcthompson
That's a good point. For products that "everyone" uses, it seems to give the
companies behind those products more power. And further empowering larger
companies to go after smaller ones doesn't seem like a good change.

------
dredmorbius
SAS Institute, one of the most valuable privately held compaies in the US, has
been fighting against run-alike and data-compatability challengers for
decades.

This is particularly ironic as the company itself was founded based on
mainframe storage and interface technologies -- the SAS program editor and
interactive environment through the 1990s was based on the IBM TSO/ISPF
environment.

Earlier challenges included the BASS System, by Jeff Bass (a DOS run-alike in
the 1980s), and a dataset reader/converter, DBMSCopy. The latter eventually
included a program interpreter as well, I believe.

My recollection is that DBMS/Copy's developer and SAS came to a mutual
understanding.

SAS's key asset is control over utility and access to a decades-old legacy of
programs and data at enterprise and government sites, though it's lost ground
to Python and R in tech and most especially academia.

[https://decisionstats.com/2009/08/28/software-history-
bass-i...](https://decisionstats.com/2009/08/28/software-history-bass-
institute-part-1/)

[http://dss.princeton.edu/online_help/stats_packages/dbmscopy...](http://dss.princeton.edu/online_help/stats_packages/dbmscopy/dbms_stat.htm)

~~~
forkandwait
I work as a SAS programmer for state government. I find it funny that anyone
would set out to emulate the jumbled late 1960s hodge podge of yuck that is
SAS syntax.

(I use SAS because I like data analysis and my pension plan and governments
don't do open source, not because I like SAS...)

~~~
secant
What system could governments use to replace SAS if they were so minded?

~~~
RSZC
Used to work for federal healthcare contractor, primarily in SAS. File
conversion was a pain, but working in Stata would generally yield runtimes
roughly an order of magnitude faster.

------
gumby
This is of course the very activity that Compaq engaged in to unlock the PC
bios capability and ignite a huge revolution.

This case is interesting and disturbing. As far as it goes, the plaintiff won
only because 1> their license forbade using their product for reverse
engineering and 2> the defendent tried to claim that reverse engineering would
be a complete reconstruction of the original source code. A stretch, and it's
understandable that they tried, but it's good they lost on that one.

On 1> I suppose the court correctly stood by contract law. The dreadful thing
about this is that such terms could be enforceable. I would hope that the
doctrine that prevents car manufacturers from forbidding you to use third
party parts in your car would protect this and it's a shame the plaintiff
didn't try. Also since this ruling, reverse engineering printer cartridges
have thankfully been validated by the supreme court.

Sorry I don't remember the case that permits third party repair parts -- IIRC
it was a lawsuit against Toyota and Volkswagen. Note that the car and tractor
companies have recently tried fishing back with DMCA(!!!) claims.

------
guelo
The real problem is that prohibiting reverse engineering is an allowable
license clause.

Imagine a hammer that was sold with a license that prohibited hammering a
competitor's nails.

After you sell me something you should not be allowed to place restrictions on
its use.

~~~
abhi3
You are oversimplifying the situation. Two sufficiently sophisticated parties
having more or less balanced bargaining power, as was the case in this
situation, should be free to contract according to their will and good/bad
judgment.

Of course, if you are a retail consumer who had no bargaining power and agreed
to a standard form contract without any legal counsel then different rules
should apply to you and in such cases courts will apply the test of
unconscionability before enforcing any clause.

------
placebo
This just strengthens my cynicism on the general state of the law and the
degree it generates justice. I'm hardly surprised anymore. Can anyone convince
me that the judges in this case put more thought into this than the vast
majority of the commenters here?

Even when I try to play devil's advocate, it's hard to justify. The fact that
you invented something, should not give you eternal rights to exclusively
profit from it. Even the warped patent industry knows _that_. The laws of
innovation should be a balancing act between incentive for the innovator and
incentive to society, and this decision is way out of balance in detriment of
society.

------
throwaway2016a
So I have a question...

How if at all does this apply to API interfaces? For example, if someone makes
an app that has a compatibility interface that works exactly like Amazon S3
while simultaneously competing with S3.

I know several people on HN run services like that. Where the code is their
own but the API interface is flat out copied from the competition.

~~~
jnwatson
Only if you had signed up with AWS and agreed not to reverse engineer and you
used the actual output of the APIs to compare to your product.

This is a contract dispute around the common sense term "reverse engineer",
not a copyright or IP dispute.

~~~
throwaway2016a
I think it is safe to say that most of the people in that situation did sign
up to AWS and AWS like just about every SaaS has a non-copy clause. Though it
only has reverse engineering clauses on Microsoft software (Windows running on
EC2) and some specific appliances.

------
adenadel
Can anyone comment on how Octave developers test to see if they are compatible
with MATLAB? It seems to me that Octave could run into this same issue.

------
siva7891
So Instagram copied Snapchat features.

Say Snapchat mentioned in its TOS that you should not use this product to copy
the features under reverse engineering and it proved that Facebook employees
did it. Does Snapchat has a legal claim?

~~~
megablast
Only if Instagram used the Snapchat app to create those features. If someone
told Instagram about the feature, or they read about it online, and then
implemented it, they are not reverse engineering it.

And you would have to wonder how it would work for simple features, that can
be communicated in a few sentences.

------
WhitneyLand
How long are these agreements valid for?

If you use the learning edition once, are you bound by it for a lifetime with
no way to end the agreement?

------
neya
Probably off-topic - One of the schools I studied in was a sell out for this
trash of a company SAS. They shoved their analytics software down our throats,
and I had a whole module where I was forced to use their shitty software.

I vehemently refused to use it and did all my analyses on Jupyter notebooks w/
Python. Simply because the software sucked so bad to the point of being
unusable. For starters, it ran ONLY on windows and to complete my assignments,
I had to use bootcamp on my Mac just for this shitty software. It was not a
cloud based interface and it seemed like it was built specifically for
Windows. And to add to the pain, it would randomly crash, throw out irrelevant
errors (uploaded too large of a data file? Here's an error stating something
about the file extension) and really looked like it was developed in the 90's.

I was blown away when I realized people were paying millions in just licenses
for this crap. Over time, even the school realized everything was moving
towards the cloud and started advocating the use of Jupyter more and more.

I for one would seriously hope this company burns down to ashes. Simply
because they're sitting on top of millions and yet can't afford to make usable
software for the amounts they charge and yet, still have the audacity to shove
it down at people's throats. Fuck SAS.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
There is a whole industry of software that is the same. Look at BMC, which I'm
familiar with. Or just about anything Oracle makes. Yes, their databases are
fast and powerful, but dealing with a lot of Oracle software is like going
back to the 1970s.

As much as we like to rail on Microsoft (and it's well-deserved), companies
like them and Apple, etc., have really made quantum leaps in usability that
most enterprise software still hasn't made.

Based on my experience, SAS isn't an egregious example, it's typical.

------
moomin
Is it just me or would this have prevented the rise of the PC?

------
axus
Looks like the EFF has to update their Reverse Engineering FAQ:
[https://www.eff.org/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-
faq#fa...](https://www.eff.org/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq#faq11)

------
Jesus_Jones
This seems like a very bad decision. You can't make a c++ compiler that
compiles the same things as Microsoft's c++ compiler? Software "licenses" that
prohibit anything that a lawyer dreams of shouldn't be legal. An independent
implementation of a program, where you merely used the original program to see
how it worked when you used it should not be considered reverse engineering.
Decisions like this only help large corporate America to preserve their
monopolies.

------
valuearb
Hmm, startup idea.

Reverse engineer SAS software, without using SAS software. Just rely on public
documentation of SAS functionality/APIs, and test with SAS code shared from
customers.

~~~
lucb1e
Or RE WPS' software after they went bankrupt. Sell it back to the founders of
WPS for bonus points.

~~~
dredmorbius
I'm not sure if Fruit of the Poisonous Tree, or a similar doctrine, applies
here.

FotPS generally appies to _evidence_ rather than copyright or contract, but I
seem to recall this argument being made. Years ago....

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree)

------
Jesus_Jones
This decision makes me want to donate a large sum to an open source project to
make a free clone of sas software. I would offer $1000 toward that. This is a
terrible decision and if we can't defeat it in this legal case, we should
defeat a company that practices this way by legal, free, and independent
software. And let's be sure not to use any sas software with that ridiculous
license clause.

------
c3534l
So if I'm Burger King, it's illegal for me to eat a McDonalds hamburger to see
why people like them?

~~~
natoliniak
Well, I suppose Mcdonald's doesn't make you sign a contract before you buy
their food, although I wouldn't be surprised if soon there will be TOS printed
on the receipts that make it illegal.

But yes, that would mean that peeking in the kitchen to see how they prepare
the food would somehow be an agreement violation...

------
joering2
tl;dr: court agreed "reverse engineering" does not mean to dive into someone
code for the PURPOSE of making your copy or new copy of similar software
better, but it simply means what it states: "you cannot reverse engineer (for
whatever reason), period"

------
jeffdavis
Pretty soon everything will be software-as-a-service, and can't be reverse
engineered. They may even be able to detect attempts to reverse engineer and
stop you.

Software might mean the complete destruction of private property as a concept.

~~~
grzm
> _" Software might mean the complete destruction of private property as a
> concept."_

I can see an argument made for removal of the concept of intellectual property
as something that's legally protected. It sounds like you're wanting to say
something stronger. What's the step into the material world?

~~~
jeffdavis
If your washing machine and car are loaded with software, then the benefits
and freedoms of ownership are basically non-existant.

~~~
grzm
Sure, I can see how an argument could be made there. There's a lot of material
goods that _don 't_ have software. Real estate, houses, food, just glancing
around the room there are many things that don't incorporate software. How do
you see these no longer being considered private property?

~~~
StillBored
Well, deed restrictions (and property taxes) make it so that pretty much
anything you can imagine can be "restricted" as you voluntarily enter into the
agreement upon "purchase" of the property...

Its not much of a stretch to imagine common security/networking/etc type
clauses in those restrictions as in many cases condo's sold in the US
basically have similar situations where you agree to adhere to building wide
decisions (on say which ISP services the building).

Then the servicing company comes along and starts to behave like John Deere
and starts prescribing what TV/pc/whatever they will inter-operate with.

~~~
grzm
As you point out, there are already some limitations placed on other forms of
private property. I don’t find this argument quite as compelling, at least
with respect to the original premise of software destroying the concept of
private property. There are restrictions which are independent and precede
software, so one could suppose that software is currently the last vestiges of
private property and SaaS and the like will finally complete the destruction
of the concept of private property, but I’m not sure this has much weight with
a lot of (or even most) people.

There are those who would argue that current encumberances have already
destroyed private property; I think most people don’t find this to be the
case, at least to the point of completely destroying it. We accept limits on
freedoms and rights because we understand they need to be balanced with
respect to one another. As absolutes they’re ultimately incompatible. Though
this is now tending towards general ideology, so I’ll stop right here.

------
datalog19908
How is this different from when AMD revere engineered x86 instruction set and
made a processor that could execute that. I thought reverse engineering was
specifically allowed legally.

------
cordite
How do you replicate the experience of a framework or standard without
experiencing it? Now, I am not talking about looking at the machine code and
whatnot, but the public API or UI.

------
qaq
So would mod. of old school setup work OK? A consulting company signs up/buys
a product and creates specs/ test cases. Company takes specs test cases and
creates a product.

------
CrossEye
I wonder if whatever is left of Netscape can sue Microsoft now over JScript...

------
AceJohnny2
In California, is there any protection for reverse-engineering?

~~~
glibgil
> As part of its efforts to develop the WPS, defendant obtained a license to
> use the “Learning Edition” provided by plaintiff

This is a contract dispute plain and simple. It has nothing to do with
California law and everything to do with civil procedure. You have a contract,
and you claim and prove damages.

If you want to reverse engineer software, don’t enter into a contract with the
maker of that software

~~~
user5994461
A contract cannot substitute itself to the law, unless the law permits it.

~~~
glibgil
The law isn’t even involved in this case. It’s a contract dispute. It’s a
civil case

~~~
mark-r
The law stipulates what is and isn't subject to contract. Laws trump contracts
every time, which is why contracts always have a clause "if any part of this
contract is unenforceable..."

------
bluetwo
Anyone here have a client reverse engineer your work?

~~~
marktangotango
I worked at a company who's flagship product was simply rebranded and sold by
a competitor in another country. Their version didn't evolve or keep up with
our improvements. By the time I worked there, about ten years had passed, and
they were still a major competitor.

------
paxy
Unrelated - but being able to handle front page HN/Reddit traffic should
really be a basic requirement for any (mostly static) website today.

~~~
internetcases
Yeah, sorry about that! My modest little blog is not used to the kind of
traffic it's seeing today. Hope you were patient and hit reload.

~~~
quickben
Just out of curiosity, what's the traffic like?

~~~
internetcases
Just passed 10,000 uniques at about 17:20 CST

------
droopybuns
I was in a road race where my car stopped running. My competitor was able to
drive across the finish line because his engine kept running.

Later I had a second race where I defeated my opponent by driving with a full
tank of gas.

The victory was overturned when a judge ruled that my use of a full tank of
gas to generate similar performance was ruled “reverse engineering.”

I have a hard time understanding the idea that generating the same result
without deriving how the other feature works is reasonably called “reverse
engineering.”

~~~
lucb1e
At what point in your example did you agree with the competitor not to reverse
engineer his winning method?

I feel like this example doesn't really reflect what happened in this court
case.

~~~
droopybuns
Is comparing the output of two different systems “reverse engineering”?

Is modifying your output to be in par with a competitor reverse engineering?

My point is that the competition doesn’t know if SAS uses banana peels to
generate their output- we only know that the the results are the same- and I
don’t think that is a reasonable definition of reverse engineering.

The algorithm has not been copied- only the resulting output. Trade secrets
remain protected.

------
djyaz1200
This is one of of the biggest developments in the software industry ever
because it incentivizes innovation (good for innovators, bad for copycats). It
also fills part of the void left by a broken patent system. We all know many
software companies are ripping off other companies ideas on a regular basis.
In many cases it's big incumbents taking ideas from upstarts competing with
them (example: Facebook via Instagram ripping off stories from Snap).

This decision should allow more competition from innovative newcomers and
higher prices in software generally. Right now software is priced artificially
low because very few vendors have any pricing power... because competitors can
just rip off what they are doing. If that's not as easy companies with
innovative ideas protected by strong ToS should be able to compete more
aggressively and price their products much higher.

I believe you're going to see many companies put all their content behind an
"agree" button.

This shift should also make acquisition prices go WAY up since companies will
have to be priced more by the opportunity/IP rather than their replacement
cost.

This is a big deal.

~~~
mindcrime
_We all know many software companies are ripping off other companies ideas on
a regular basis._

"Ideas" in the abstract aren't protected, except by trade secret laws. Patents
are, at least in theory, supposed to apply to something more concrete than a
mere "idea".

 _This decision should allow more competition from innovative newcomers_

What? No it won't, it'll inhibit innovation by putting more power in the hands
of large incumbents who employ many lawyers and have large war chests to fund
lawsuits. No startup is going to prevail in a lawsuit against Facebook unless
a miracle happens, because they'll run out of money and close down before the
case is ever settled. That is, if the "chilling effects" of this kind of
ruling doesn't prevent them from ever getting started in the first place.

 _This shift should also make acquisition prices go WAY up since companies
will have to be priced more by the opportunity /IP rather than their
replacement cost._

This also works to inhibit innovation, as companies can lock out competitors
via legal machinations, as opposed to needing to innovate continuously.

 _This is a big deal._

Maybe. It was a circuit court decision, so (in the US at least) to the extent
that it establishes any precedent, it's only strictly applicable in the 4th
circuit (for now).

~~~
djyaz1200
It sounds like you are like many others in tech who believe everything should
be open source. Good for you but some of us need to make money off of our
life's work in innovation.

Time will tell, I view this in a hopeful way as a shift in direction.

I think companies that invest in innovative products big or small should be
able to defend those innovations against being ripped off.

Yes, fights over this will be resource intensive but there are ways to fund
expensive litigation if winning is plausible. And of course the expense of
litigation touches on all kinds of unrelated problems.

"This also works to inhibit innovation, as companies can lock out competitors
via legal machinations, as opposed to needing to innovate continuously."

You're flat out wrong here. Companies will need to create their own
innovations rather than ripping off others. This will give power to the the
people actually innovating and encourage companies to invest in their own R&D.

RE the 4th circuit, yes it's not the Supreme Court but it's a big decision in
the right direction in my view... and suggests this and/or related issues may
be heard by the supreme court.

Ultimately software is not the open source cooperative utopia that many people
like you hoped for. It is a ruthless for profit marketplace, and if you ever
want to give the guy in the garage a chance you have to give him a mechanism
to protect his ideas... and the patent system is not that mechanism right now.
Perhaps terms of use will be?

Maybe not, in any case the status quo is letting giant tech companies power
and influence grow without limits... and that needs to change.

~~~
xfer
You seem to think that you can not sell open-source software. Yet all the
linux based companies are doing that for decades now. There are many other
examples.

~~~
djyaz1200
They sell support really, the software is free.

