Comment by tseabrooks | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tseabrooks | Hacker News Reader

The article doesn't make it clear; Do they get their code also? Presumably the original acquisition was of the "product" but the article REPEATEDLY points out the original founders have gained the rights to the trademark and the domain.

What good is the domain without the code? They could rewrite the code from scratch. Though, that maks me wonder... If I single handedly write a piece of SW that does "X" and sell it to Yahoo. Can I then make a new site / app that dose "X"? Is it copyright infringement (a la the android / oracle Tim Sort) since anything I write that is an identical app is likely to have very similar, if not identical, code?

How much of what is in my head is mine and how much is covered by copyright if I've written it before?

If I single handedly write a piece of SW that does "X" and sell it to Yahoo. Can I then make a new site / app that dose "X"?

One example that comes to mind is Miller Puckette, who wrote Max, and then a few years later wrote its main open-source competitor, Pure Data. It seems quite possible to write a clone of your own software without literally writing the same thing, especially if it's been a few years and you have some new ideas about how to do it now. My guess is that doing so would most often be sunk, if it is, by software patents or explicit clauses in the sale terms, rather than copyright.

"If I single handedly write a piece of SW that does "X" and sell it to Yahoo. Can I then make a new site / app that dose "X"?"

Quite often part of the purchase agreement is that you won't build a competitor to X for a certain number of years. Sometimes they go as far as not competing with the acquirer at all for that duration.

And if you use code that was included as part of the purchase, you're playing with fire.

Unfortunately Yahoo is asking for a lot of money to get their code back. So right now it's just the trademark and the domain.

The company I work for was recently acquired. A part of the agreement for the founders, aside from having to stay with the company for 2 years, is they can't have more than 1% ownership of a competing company for that duration and up to a year after employment termination.

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