----- Original Message -----
From: "Helen Borrie" <helebor@...>
To: <IB-Architect@egroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2000 3:39 AM
Subject: Re: [IB-Architect] Intellectual Property and the Architecture List


> >Intellectual property can also be protected under contract law
> >as trade secrets, but only among parties to a contract.
>
> And this is true in other countries also. However, trade secrets
> legislation cannot be applied to open source software. Something made
> freely available to the public cannot be a secret. It would be a fool who
> posted some information to a public list server, told people to help
> themselves to his source code and said "But don't tell anyone, it's a
secret."

And that fool is Bill Gates, see