Software Engineering Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professionals, academics, and students working within the systems development life cycle. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I've got a question about author rights and open source software.
Assuming I want to build a software. A similar software is already created, but isn't free at all and owned by a company. Can a build an open source clone of the proprietary software from scratch? Or is it forbidden by intellectual property?
And what if I use proprietary ideas in the open source software?
You are certainly permitted to build compatible software and there is nothing in Copyright Law that prevents you from doing so. Ideas cannot be protected, only their expression in a particular software 'work'.
The same is not true of Patent Law. This protects an 'invention' and you cannot use a patented invention in anything without permission of the patent holder.
You should bear in mind that there could be considerable financial risk in doing this. Companies that have invested money in developing software are often prepared to invest money in lawyers to protect it, and finding out whether they are right or not can be very expensive.
The odd thing is: if you try and fail, they'll probably leave you alone. The greatest risk comes when you succeed.
If you head down this path then sooner or later you will need competent legal advice, and that also costs money. By all means give it a go, but be aware of the risks.
You might have thought that releasing the source code or even making it public domain would protect you, but it does not. Any legal action would be about the damage you did to a company by your actions and releasing the source code might even aggravate the situation.
'Proprietary ideas' the bizarre concept that it is, is often covered by patent law.
You can however clone to your hearts content. Bear in mind that clones sufficiently close in appearance can land you in legal hot water. The sufficiency of that is determined by the pursuant, the judge, and/or the jury.
One thing that is important, you can not use any assets that you do not have a right to use. Assets include sound and graphics.
You may also be hit with a cease and desist. These are about as friendly as it gets. They ask you to stop or they will pursue legal claims. Sometimes these C&D orders have a good standing, other times they are threats on shaky ground.
