Preparing to convince to shift to non-propriety documents formats

[Oron Peled]

On Tuesday, 21 בFebruary 2012 17:56:15 Dotan Cohen wrote:
> If anyone is worried about releasing code developed from information
> gleaned in the MS documentation, then I can "contract" the work, and I
> release it. Therefore it is me who would be sued. I am willing to be
> the scapegoat and take that chance.

Regretfully, your noble suggestion does not give any significant
protection, for various reason (IANAL):
 * Patents: control *use* and not implementation. So if you write
   "patent infringing" code, you have no problem as long as you
   don't run it. However, your users are at a risk.
   (as a demo, see how MS threaten OEM's for Android use and not Google)

 * You may think about idemnifying your users (i.e: promise to financially
   back their damages), but this isn't a reasonable option unless you
   have spare cache in the 5-6 digits range (USA, in dollars).

 * Copyrights: this is a lesser risk, since we know free software
   developers do not copy/derive code from MS. However, even in
   this case -- if you are sued for copyright infringment, there's
   nothing that protect your users from being sued also (In the USA
   the MPAA/RIAA reminds everybody of this fact -- they sue the
   end users even if they downloaded infringing content from other
   "infringing party", like youtube/pirate-bay/etc.)

> That means that the code will be released under GLP but the copyright
> remains with me, not you. But I think you guys know me, my intention
> is only to protect the real author, not to profit from the code.

Profit from free software is not a shame. On the contrary, the client
gets the program he asked for and as a bonus it's free software --
So the client gets better value for money.

That's why I'm really sorry to hit your inovative bussiness model.
I wish it would be feasible.

> ...The true author can remain anonymous if he wishes.

Again, this isn't too practical these days (with BB anywhere).

-- 
Oron Peled                                 Voice: +972-4-8228492
oron at actcom.co.il                  http://users.actcom.co.il/~oron
God is real... unless declared an integer.