Author: Slater Wold
Date: 13:58:02 02/15/04
Go up one level in this thread
On February 15, 2004 at 16:51:28, Dann Corbit wrote: >On February 15, 2004 at 16:47:14, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On February 15, 2004 at 16:07:11, Dann Corbit wrote: >> >>>On February 15, 2004 at 15:52:35, Matthias Gemuh wrote: >>> >>>>On February 15, 2004 at 15:07:39, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>Here we disagree. I see nothing wrong with starting from some known point, so >>>>>long as you eventually end up with nothing but your own code... Otherwise you >>>>>will spend a long time writing all the support stuff, and many lose interest >>>>>before they get far enough along to actually see their creation play any real >>>>>chess... >>>>> >>>>>IE this is where "C" came from. Changes to "B". Etc... >>> >>>Let's suppose that somehere in the process, your algorithms looked considerably >>>similar to the ones that you started with. >>> >>>Then you let people use your program. Someone noticed that some data arrays in >>>your program were the same as in his. >>> >>>A big brew-ha-ha starts. >>> >>>Apparently the crime committed is that enough changes were not committed yet to >>>make it unrecognizable. >>> >>>I do not think that this is the path that DanChess did. Rather, he took ideas >>>from crafty and grafted the algorithms into his program. In doing so, he had to >>>make changes to each idea that he adopted. >>> >>>This is somehow seen as a great crime, but the other not? >>> >>>Puzzling to me. It is the copy/replace scheme that seems criminal to me. And >>>the adoption of ideas that seems totally harmless. >> >> >>I'll remind you once again, I copied _lots_ of ideas over the years, from >>various people like Slate, Thompson, et. al. But I have never copied _any_ >>source code from anyone... >> >>This is about source, not about ideas. They are different. >> >>I would have no problem whatsoever with DanChess had he did what he did, but >>then evolved things to be significantly different _before_ starting to >>distribute it as an original chess program. > >You bring up an interesting point. Not about copyright and not about >algorithms. But about ownership. Not ownership of ideas or algorithms or >source code, but ownership of a system. The question is this: > >I started with system x and made systematic changes to arrive at system y. > >At what point does system x.n on the way to becomeing system y become "mine" as >opposed to the original owner of system x? > >I have no idea how such a determination might be made. The Supreme Court came up with this standard long ago. The new system has to make the work easier, and be more effecient. Period. http://www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/patentcases/query=[Group+383us1:]([level+case+citation:]|[level+case+elements:])/doc/{@1}/hit_headings/words=4/hits_only?
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