drw@cullvax.UUCP (02/08/87)
There are three ways of protecting a piece of software: (1) copyright,
(2) trade secret ("proprietary"), and (3) licensing.
A copyright is easy to get--all you have to do is write the work
yourself, and put a copyright notice on any copy you distribute. It
is enforcable against anybody, even if they didn't realize that you
owned the work. In the case of Yacc, it doesn't matter if there are
10,000 copies floating around without their copyright notices, the
copyright still exists.
For something to be trade secret, you have to prove that it is
valuable to your business and that you are seriously attempting to
keep it secret. You can give it out to other parties, but you have to
show that you are binding them to secrecy. It is enforcable against
anyone who obtained it while being aware that you intended to keep it
secret. It is *not* enforcable against someone who obtained it in
good faith. In the case of Yacc, any trade secret was blown out of
the water long ago.
Licensing is a contract between you and another party allowing them to
do something that they would otherwise be forbidden to (e.g., use a
piece of software that you own), in return for something (e.g., paying
you money). It is enforcably only against the parties to the
contract. In the case of Yacc, this is irrelevant.
All of these are modified by the concept of "estoppel", that if you do
not take prompt steps to protect your rights, you lose them.
Effectively, you are giving tacit permission to the other parties. In
the case of Yacc, it seems to me that this point is long past, since
the relevant people at AT&T must have long been aware that their
program was being *sold* by other parties. However, this estoppel may
extend only to "non-profit" sellers...
(Don't trust my opinions, ask you lawyer!)
Dale
--
Dale Worley Cullinet Software
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