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Comment by abpavel | Hacker News Reader

Because I've invented something unseen before, spent a fortune developing a method, patented it, also spending a fortune on legal, and don't want script kiddies to mooch off my talent that easily. I have a sense of proprietorship and want to own something. Patents mean jack squat to people like op, and I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I invoke my patent, I'm deemed "evil" because I have a patent, and will have to spend lifetime in courts protecting my invention. If I compile, I'm deemed "evil" because there is no such thing as innovative code.

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> and don't want script kiddies to mooch off my talent that easily.

You do realise that's not how research, science and engineering work right? Just because you think it's morally justifiable to "own an idea" doesn't mean it is morally justifiable to do so.

Besides, do you really think someone is going to supplant you that easily? If you're really worried, use the GPL and then use their improvements to improve your own work.

> and don't want script kiddies to mooch off my talent that easily.

We all "mooch" off of other's talents. That's the beauty of our industry. We get inspired, we share, and we base our works on the works of others.

That's why its so important to pair huge investments in R&D with awesome business people. Don't obsess about protecting your inventions. Obsess about getting your inventions out there, selling, supporting, and custom tailoring it for what customers really need.

> Obsess about getting your inventions out there That's what I want to do, but all of the legal advice I got was to do otherwise. At first I thought that losing all that you've built in an instance was a rare event, but the more I talked to business owners and lawyers, I haven't gotten a single advise to release it in any way that would put it outside of my control. And the thing they cited is almost exactly of what OP describes: once someone else has your code, the whole world has it.

And it hurts that I careless about the code - it can be rewritten in a million ways. What I care about is what code does, and the multitude of GloboCorps working on the same issue in vane, and their ability to reproduce our work in months once they understand the secret sauce.

If that's the case, you might want to release your code as an online service.

Also - keep in mind that "Legal advice" isn't necessarily "Business advice". Lawyers can't tell you how to make money, or how to build a business that survives even when people compete with you. They'll tell you how to try to prevent competition, or protect IP, but they won't tell you how to be a market leader.

As for BigCorp copying your inventions - that can obviously happen. But it's also very likely that if you can solve a problem that BigCorp is failing at, they'll simply give you an M&A offer.

> their ability to reproduce our work in months once they understand the secret sauce.

if the secret sause is so simple that they can copy it in months without violating copyright laws, may be it's not so saucy after all!

Data, whether code, or algorithm, is not physical, and therefore, unless you don't give the code out (e.g., sell via SaaS), it's gone as soon as you release it, obfuscated or not.

Imagine where you'd be if mathematicians had a similar thought process as yours. They spend entire lifetimes inventing methods and algorithms to solve complex problems.

I think all these problems arise from the way we pretend that information is property. It is not.

>If I invoke my patent, I'm deemed "evil" because I have a patent

I don't think people have a problem with enforcing patents in general, just patent 'trolling', i.e. buying someone else's patent or patenting broad ideas.

edit: newline detection fail

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