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Any larger competitor would surely discourage disassembling a competitor's code because mere exposure to it might make you liable to lawsuits if you develop sim
by necovek 2y ago
Any larger competitor would surely discourage disassembling a competitor's code because mere exposure to it might make you liable to lawsuits if you develop similar features (and you can't trust that the fact you did it won't leak out).
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoIsn't this the argument for releasing the source code? Looking at the code would be as bad as disassembling it. You can release source code under a license that gives customers the right to modify it and distribute patches to your other customers who have the license that came with their hardware without giving competitors the right to ship it on their own hardware without paying you.
- necovek 2y agoSure, and some companies strongly discourage looking over other open source code for exactly that reason. But companies don't release their source code mostly for a different reason: they honestly believe that this is where their value is, or they believe support costs would outweight any benefits. For some, it's true, but for most, it's utterly false (or there is a tiny little bit of code somewhere that is valuable, with all the rest being boring code that nobody else could put to use).
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago"Some companies do this because they're dumb and wrong" is a plausible explanation for why they aren't doing it, but then they should just release it. The future can be better than the past.