On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:18:12 -0700, Ben Sizer wrote: > Imagine if you were the single-person developer of a small application > that did something quite innovative,
And imagine that you found a money-tree in your back yard... How about a more likely scenario? Imagine you're using a boring, run-of-the-mill algorithm, the same as 99.9% of all software out there, and that it's neither non-obvious nor innovative in any way at all. Statistically, I'd say it is ten thousand times more likely that this is the case than that the algorithm is at all valuable. Everybody thinks their algorithm is "special". They almost never are. Even this is more likely than the semi-mythical algorithm that needs to be kept secret: the reason "you" (generic you) want to keep your software secret is because you've copied source code -- from books, from your friends, from Open Source projects, maybe even from stolen copies of Windows source code you've downloaded from the darker corners of the Internet, and you don't want people to know. That's more likely than you hitting upon an amazing new innovative AND valuable algorithm. Valuable algorithms are rare. Most software is not valuable for the algorithm, which is hidden in the source code, but for the functionality, which is obvious. Algorithms are a dime a dozen. >> It may not matter if some console game or other doesn't work after 20 >> years... > > Certainly; yet this is a valid example of software that requires a > degree of protection since some of the algorithms employed truly are > 'worth stealing'. Yes, and for every algorithm "worth stealing", there are ten thousand that aren't. Play the odds, and you too will poo-poo the idea that some random developer on Usenet has discovered a valuable innovative algorithm. More likely he's just ashamed of his code, or wants to hide backdoors in it. -- Steven D'Aprano -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
