Tuesday, December 06, 2005

The world of "Free" Restrictions


The following has been GPLed from a Linux seminar.

Patent
This is a Time Limited protection for your technology. Basically it goes something like this. You file a patent, meaning - you file the details to the Govt., the Govt protects your technology from anyone else using it for X number of years, unless with permission/license from you. After the patent time, the technology will be Open to all. A good example is the patent of drugs. An advantage in this is that it brings out competition and results in lower price and better output.

Trade secret
Its a bit straight forward. You basically give nothing to the Govt. Coca cola recipe is one such example.

Public Domain
This is a free for all. There is no need to credit anybody(they say its unethical). The example here is the B-Gate memory allocator (No. dont ask me. Google it. you will get better answers).

Trademark
This is the concept of "Exclusive rights to use a name". Examples include Kleenex. Coca Cola, et al.

Servicemark
A kind of trademark which is used to identify and give exclusive rights (distinctive value) to a service rather than a product rendered by a particular provider.

Copyright
The right of the author to control what he/she/they created. You need to get permission from the author to modify the contents. Examples include literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, etc.

Copyleft
The right opposite of copyright. My favorite. The idea is NOT to restrict the rights of anybody using it. The main restriction is a way to establish status, where whoever uses what you hvae done, gives the same freedom you gave to those who will be getting it from ur "client".

Got it???

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