How about a contractor selling the okc source code tree to some Chinese "entrepreneur" who launches a copycat site in China that somehow gains 300M members within a year?
Just one extreme to make your statement look silly.
Just one extreme to make your statement look silly.
A trade secret is... what?
Unlike a patent, if you competitor invents it independently, then it is no longer a trade secret. You are only protected against a restricted range of dodgy dealing, and then only if you took adequate security measures (employees under appropriate NDA, not obvious in your product, obfuscated if sourcecode, that sort of thing).
Some people say they are 'software patents done right'. Certainly they serve a different purpose.
It's also puts a bit more depth on Elon Musk's comments about not patenting technology developed within SpaceX[1], since the perceived patent infringers would laugh at any lawsuit and use the patents as a recipe (China, pseudo-state run companies therein, etc). They may not be patenting technology, but I bet there's quite a bit protected anyways as a trade secret.
[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-patents-2012-11
Also it would probably be faster to write a copy from scratch in rails than figure out the various dependencies for OKWS and SFSLite (unless that's really improved since I was there). :)
Or for that matter, concept ideas to implementation details. I for one would consider a case different if a past coca cola employee would start his own suger flavored drink, vs copying the cola recipe.