JeffM said:
Sure, you'll see some *features* that are analogous
but *a direct copy* is what gets patent lawyers rabid.
Hmm... the OpenOffice guys seem to have avoided that problem. I mean, not
everything is identical to MS Office, but the "basic" interface is *nearly*
identical.
*Look and feel* is usually the FIRST thing that gets personalized.
I think it depends on the company and who's "driving" the design. For new
start-ups, I would agree that often the idea is to take one's experience with
current tools and provide something even better, but for big companies
sometimes the design is driven largely by a rather uncreative marketing
department that knows nothing better than to just copy their competitors'
features more or less directly.
If you are looking for the lowest chance
of getting the carpet pulled out from under you,
*open source software* (gratis and libre in the cases I note)
has the fewest version/license shenanigans.
Hmm... actually, I think a lot more individuals are caught off-guard by the
"viral" nature of popular open-source licenses than those who end up being
surprised by any of the traditional commercial licenses. The biggest worry I
see commercial users of commercial software worrying about is whether or not
their supplier is going to go out of business and leave them high and dry,
whereas the biggest worries I see commercial users of open source software
worrying about is (1) whether they'll be forced to exposure what they consider
their intellectual property as soon as they touch an open-source tool and (2)
is there any guarantee of support? (Does anyone offer paid gEDA support
yet? -- most companies seem to feel much more secure in calling Cadence's
support center in India or wherever than they do in posting a question on an
open forum and taking their chances...). Note that I'm not suggesting these
worries are necessarily well-founded, just that they're out there.
