[H-GEN] Fwd: [research] Request for expert witness

Paul Gearon gearon at ieee.org
Mon Jun 4 01:10:59 EDT 2007


On Jun 3, 2007, at 11:22 PM, Peter McConnell wrote:

>
> I have no idea from the content of this letter, how this matter
> relates:
>         1. To myself.
>         2. To the Open Source community.

If it doesn't relate to you, then don't bother with it.  For OSS,  
obviously it doesn't apply here either.  I'm not suggesting that  
anyone has to help, only that they might like to.

I guess the reason it seemed interesting to me is that I've seen a  
lot of people writing Javascript use and adapt Javascript from other  
people's pages.  It's probably against copyright law, but it's also  
common (should I say rampant?).  Sourcecode is one thing, but client  
side Javascript must necessarily be sent out for everyone to read,  
making it easy for any highschool kid to fiddle with and redeploy.  I  
posted it because I think it's something that would probably affect  
quite a few people who've used Javascript.

> A programmer is employed by a company for a peiod of time to
> develop something, which was copied from somewhere else. He
> then leaves and uses the code in direct opposition to his
> original employer.
> I would question the ethics of this person.

This may be, but it's hard to draw inferences from such a short email.

Actually, my bigger concern was further on....

>>>> issue is that he copied two small JavaScript files - which when the
>>>> original software was developed, were probably copied from  
>>>> elsewhere.

"probably copied from elsewhere"?  This doesn't sound like  lawyer  
who's on the ball.

All the same, given the amount of Javascript that I've seen reused, I  
think this could be of interest to *someone* in the group.  (just so  
you know... I've never deployed any Javascript myself)

> I would suggest that the code in question be googled to establish  
> whether
> it is original or not.

Not a bad idea.  I'm surprised that the lawyer doesn't already have  
the answer to this question.

Anyway, sorry if I've offended.  Please ignore if appropriate.

Paul




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