Jeff,

Have you also seen this applied where it is to the employer's
disadvantage?  For example, given that I looked at and worked
with GPL code (say Linux kernel) in University before taking
employment as a programmer that the employer's product is
inevitably contaiminated and no longer a trade secret?  Can
a previous employee get an injunction against their former
employer to cease and desist from using this negative knowledge?

If so, I might have a solution: make the Linux kernel required
reading in University programming classes!

On Sat, 02 Dec 2000, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 02, 2000 at 10:42:29PM -0500, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
> >    Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 18:21:26 -0700
> >    From: "Jeff V. Merkey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > 
> >    Under this argument, it is argued that the engineer who had source 
> >    code access "inevitably used" negative knowledge he gained from 
> >    his study of the Linux sources.  Absent the vague descriptions of
> >    what a "derivative work" is in the GPL, it could be argued that 
> >    conversion of any knowledge contained in GPL code is a "derivative
> >    work".  
> > 

-- 
Brian F. G. Bidulock    ¦ The reasonable man adapts himself to the ¦
[EMAIL PROTECTED]    ¦ world; the unreasonable one persists in  ¦
http://www.openss7.org/ ¦ trying  to adapt the  world  to himself. ¦
                        ¦ Therefore  all  progress  depends on the ¦
                        ¦ unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw ¦
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