[plug] PHP

[Kai]

Sorry, I know this is off topic, but, I had to give my two cents worth.

<snip>
Trying to tie people in to you as the developer by witholding the source
code sounds somewhat questionable ethically to me.
<snip>

Exactly what Microsoft did (is still doing to other companies?) to Netscape
in order to get IE from about 20 ish %  of market share up to what it is
now - about 80%.
They never realesed some vital code that Netscape needed to finish Netscape
for use with Win95 - consequently NS didn't get put out for retail use until
months after Win95 (and of course IE) was put out for retail sale and
Netscape lost out big !

/Kai
Reply-to: vk6ksj at siwa.com.au



----- Original Message -----
From: "Christian" <christian at amnet.net.au>
To: <plug at plug.linux.org.au>
Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [plug] PHP


> On Tue, Aug 01, 2000 at 12:45:22PM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
>
> > Kind of, but not exactly.
> >
> > If a contractor does work for a client, to create an application to run
> > on a web server, to which the client has local access, an executable
> > file, which cannot be easily decoded back to the PHP source code, would,
> > amongst other things, ensure integrity of the application (by preventing
> > hack programmers from experimenting; "Ooh, wow. Look what I have found.
> > I wonder what happens if I change these lines to make it
> > prettier...Oops! it doesn't work anymore - call the developer, and tell
> > him that his application has a bug...") (apart from the contactor
> > preventing anyone else from working on their application, and thus,
> > ensuring that the contractor gets any required support and development
> > work on the application).
>
> I'm not a lawyer but I understand that in the vast majority of
> circumstances if you do some work for a client then they will own the
> copyright to the work that you've done so they are entitled to the
> source code whether or not you try to hide it from them or not.  Trying
> to tie people in to you as the developer by witholding the source code
> sounds somewhat questionable ethically to me.
>
> Regards,
>
> Christian.
>
>