Open letter

[Merlin Zener]

Paul Perry wrote:
> 
> [...snip]
> If I publish a circuit, witout patenting it, anyone can do what they like
> with it.
> We're talking LEGAL here, not moral.
> 


this reminds me of a story of a place where I used to work,
back when I was a mere apprentice, making the coffee for the
"real" techs:)

One of the techs there designed and built a comparator for
car audio - you know, listen to *those* speakers with *that*
amp and *that* radio/cassette....
Anyhow, the thing was built and sold to the car radio shop,
and about six months later the same thing started appearing
in shops all over the city. Now, this wasn't just copying a
couple of circuit ideas here and there, it was exact, from
the dimensions of the display right down to the same signal
assignments on the same conductors on the ribbon cables.

My boss was naturally upset - it was his money that had
developed the thing (he was the one paying for the thing to
be designed and built) so he went to a lawyer.
The lawyer said: "oh yes - you've got a watertight case;
but there's no point even starting - they've got more money."

The point being, it doesn't matter who's right or wrong, it's
who's got more money to throw at lawyers....

-- 
Merlin Zener                            mailto:merlin at ion.com.au
Piano and Synthesizer              http://www.ion.com.au/~merlin

"No-one ever went blind from looking on the bright side of life"