What's interesting I think is how the web has proven this to be utterly demonstrably false - we see staggeringly valuable and complex webapps written entirely in trivially reverse-engineerable Javascript and HTML. I can't count the number of times I saw a cool technique and within minutes figured out how they did it using only tools built into just about every browser. Now it's true that given the option companies will absolutely obfuscate to the maximum extent possible (eg: for a while you would see stuff built in Flash purely to obfuscate it) - but the idea that people won't develop products at all merely because they can't protect their secrets just seems to be utterly false. In fact competition seems to thrive beyond all measure when revealing secrets is forced by the technology.
I think that's still not the point. A popular website's trade secret is not necessarily its source code. You can copy facebook's code from soup to nuts but you are not going to be nearly as successful.
On the other hand, imagine someone found out a way to cure cancer. If he just releases his formula, then there's a very good chance that he will not make any money off of it at all. Without patent protection, he will probably hoard the discovery for years while building a company of his own to sell the drug. Finally, the drugs will be available, and yet the public will still have no knowledge of how to develop the drug, improve it even further, or apply it to other diseases.
I'm not personally a big fan of patents. I'm merely addressing your comments, which I see to be somewhat irrelevant.
zmmmmm|11 years ago
hsk|11 years ago
On the other hand, imagine someone found out a way to cure cancer. If he just releases his formula, then there's a very good chance that he will not make any money off of it at all. Without patent protection, he will probably hoard the discovery for years while building a company of his own to sell the drug. Finally, the drugs will be available, and yet the public will still have no knowledge of how to develop the drug, improve it even further, or apply it to other diseases.
I'm not personally a big fan of patents. I'm merely addressing your comments, which I see to be somewhat irrelevant.