Blackduck Software and IP

[Kevin D. Clark]

Jeff Macdonald writes:

> This isn't strictly Linux related, but a pointy-hair boss here
> mentioned to a peer of mine the desire to bring these folks in. I'm at
> a loss why any company would actually need such a service, so I'm
> wondering if any of you have anyinsight.

1:  XYZ Corp goes into business.

2:  XYZ Corp wants to make product AAA.

3:  XYZ Corp hires Joe Programmer to create software module BBB, which
    is part of AAA.

4:  Joe is both unethical and a lousy programmer.  He can't complete
    the work for BBB, but he is smart enough to know about this thing
    called "google".

5:  Joe finds a GPL'd product called CCC that does nearly exactly what
    he needs to do in order to complete BBB.  Joe takes the source
    from CCC, removes as much identifying information as he can find,
    and submits it to XYZ Corp as BBB.

6:  Joe moves on to greener pastures.

7:  XYZ Corp's AAA product is successful.

8:  One day one of XYZ Corp's customers looks at AAA closely and
    determines that it contains CCC.  Since CCC is GPL'd, it is
    perfectly within their rights to ask XYZ Corp for a copy of the
    code that "comprises" [1] AAA.  In fact, XYZ Corp should have already
    been making this available.

9:  Trouble for XYZ Corp.  Maybe they want to release their source
    code at this point, or maybe they want to fight.  Either way, Joe
    was the guy who put them in this position in the first place.


Kind regards,

--kevin


[1]   We could have a long discussion as to what this term means,
      exactly. 

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