Thanks

I appreciate the welcome from Steve and Thomas, it is nice to know that
people spend time reading and answering emails in this group in a friendly
and positive way.

I have not been schooled in formal coding, what I have learned has been self
taught and studying others codes and examples, I suppose school would be a
great alternative choice to learn but then again its costly and takes the
fun out of discovery and learning. I started last year in the development
of web design and have found that even though I know there is a lot to learn
still even in my skills in HTML that I love to develop and push myself to
learn and create things I can be proud of. Delphi has definitely provided
me with the type of environment that challenges thought and development.

I spent the better part of last year reading and picking apart web sites,
and learning how people have approached design techniques. The interesting
part of all this is to move line by line through the code and figure out how
each line works in relation to others. I find that through this method, I
learn much faster.

The purpose in the original questions I posed yesterday is two-fold, because
I read so much code and take it apart to understand how people manipulate
computers to do what they are told, I find that even the pages of script in
web design tend to take on the same shape as code I have studied to learn
the scripting language I'm working in. That's not to say that I
intentionally copy or slightly change code to make it my own however in a
different Delphi yahoo group I gentleman brought up the same sort of
questions I wondered about, that is. and I quote the other group.

" Hello,
I have been accused of steeling source code from an old 1999 DOS
Borland Pascal Program to create a Delphi Application. I'm trying
to figure out how to do a comparison to prove my code is my own.

The issue is that the code is so different that its hard to know
where to start.

The DOS program is a DOS program, it doesn't have any windows
components, no VCL, no forms. It has a propritary flat file
database. The only way it can be compiled is to use a virtual DOS
6.22 machine. It is no longer sold, it runs as a legacy program on
very old PCs.

The Delphi application is a normal Delphi application that uses
the MSDE version of Sql Server.

These are both large programs, 125,000 lines or more. They both
have multiple source code units. I know without looking that there
will not be common unit names or organization. I don't expect to
find common function names.

So far all that can be seen are pdf versions of their DOS source
code. They claim that if we put a virtual machine together we can
see the source in its correct form.

Does anyone have any idea of how to do this comparison quickly and
efficently? I'm not even sure if files from the virtual machine
will be able to be compared to files on the regular hard drive. I'm
almost to the point of hand scanning all the units and collecting
metrics of some kind.";

I suppose what I wonder is what line is drawn between copyright materials
such as the material described in that email, and what makes this
interesting and worse at the same time is that obviously the code should not
be even remotely close to each other based solely on the major differences
in operating systems. I could be wrong about that, however, the questions
remain. yes this is a much larger and I'm sure a labour intensive project,
(I know Thomas your growling at me, being a president of a software
development company) but what other issues could be happening here to say
that u stole my code, and more importantly although a far stretch, the
traditional "hello world"; code used to teach beginners how to "create your
first program" in the first chapter in any idiots guide to programming or
scripting could also be declared a copy right infringement if someone could
figure out how to use the sentence in a retail production and distributable
code.

What stops the treat of being harassed by companies claiming you have stolen
their code, and the term of good programming? I would think that although
there is many ways to get to the same result, or sometimes there is only one
way to develop the result (ex. "hello world";) what's to say I could not
develop the same code knowing or not knowing the other source code existed.

And in the same breath. what's protecting developers from the re-use of
their code. and what's the appropriate time frame in which someone could use
code similar to the code they found from 7 or 8 years ago and using it to
benefit their requirements now?

I am currently planning two software development strategies and plans, and I
worry that one day someone will track my new butt down and accuse me of
using the same sort of generic no-brainer code that is a much better short
cut then what I originally planned. Furthermore, unlike the scripting
languages (except php where the code is hidden more or less) compiled Delphi
files regardless of the programming language, contains codes where u cant
see the credits anyways of where that code module came from. How do you
deal with that in your day to day programming or is it something that is
kept hush hush unless someone rings an alarm on you?

I certainly would like to explore this in detail in this group, and to see
how others deal or don't deal with similar situations.

On the next note and I know I'm blowing a bunch of email fauxpas' but I am
thinking I have found a great wealth of information in the responses I have
seen so far, I would like to ask one more massive and really ugly question
for people like Thomas' and others who have the ability to make decisions on
price and marketing custom software solutions, I would like to know how I
would get started in custom application building and how do u charge clients
for the services you offer? Is it mostly dependant on the uniqueness of the
project and the size of the target market for that particular program?

What sort of jobs would I be able to find if I wanted to get in over my head
in programming? Does it pay better to work for a major company? Or software
development process being developed by one person.and distributed?

Any thoughts would be appreciate

Paul

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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coyote_dj2003 wrote:
> I suppose what I wonder is what line is drawn between copyright materials
> such as the material described in that email, and what makes this
>; interesting and worse at the same time is that obviously the code should not
> be even remotely close to each other based solely on the major differences
> in operating systems. I could be wrong about that, however, the questions
> remain. yes this is a much larger and I'm sure a labour intensive project,
> (I know Thomas your growling at me, being a president of a software
> development company) but what other issues could be happening here to say
> that u stole my code, and more importantly although a far stretch, the
> traditional "hello world"; code used to teach beginners how to "create your
>; first program" in the first chapter in any idiots guide to programming or
> scripting could also be declared a copy right infringement if someone could
> figure out how to use the sentence in a retail production and distributable
> code.

First off, I don't get mad easily. The only way to quickly get me riled
is to be a deliberate hindrance to the development and growth of those
who want to become software developers. Especially females in this
male-dominated industry.

I am not a lawyer, but I know enough to be dangerous. The basic rule of
thumb is to read the license/legal agreement of whatever you are looking
at (it is dry, it is boring, it is technical, but it'll save your
bacon). If you are writing something similar, make sure the code is 75%
you. There are some things that are completely unavoidable (e.g. using
the same Win32 APIs).

> What stops the treat of being harassed by companies claiming you have stolen
> their code, and the term of good programming? I would think that although
> there is many ways to get to the same result, or sometimes there is only one
> way to develop the result (ex. "hello world";) what's to say I could not
> develop the same code knowing or not knowing the other source code existed.

It helps to do a little market research in advance. You'll be able to
come up with who you will be competing against (if anyone) and whether
it is even worth developing the software in the first place. Copyright
infringement is HARD to prove when it comes to software. Patent
infringement, OTOH, is far more reaching and has cases that have
succeeded in court.

> And in the same breath. what's protecting developers from the re-use of
> their code. and what's the appropriate time frame in which someone could use
> code similar to the code they found from 7 or 8 years ago and using it to
> benefit their requirements now?

Most source code is proprietary and kept within the "corporate"
firewall...so that code would have to be leaked.

Both copyright and patent laws are, IMO, outdated. Neither are
processed fast enough and each industry moves at different speeds. The
computer industry moves 10 times faster than any other industry.
Copyrights and patents should therefore expire in 1/10 the time. And
copyright/patent expiration dates shouldn't be fixed - industries speed
up and slow down.

> On the next note and I know I'm blowing a bunch of email fauxpas' but I am
> thinking I have found a great wealth of information in the responses I have
>; seen so far, I would like to ask one more massive and really ugly question
> for people like Thomas' and others who have the ability to make decisions on
> price and marketing custom software solutions, I would like to know how I
> would get started in custom application building and how do u charge clients
> for the services you offer? Is it mostly dependant on the uniqueness of the
> project and the size of the target market for that particular program?

It is really up to you what price you want to set. You have to figure
out who you are targeting, why they are a viable target, and how much
they are willing to spend for your product. For me, I grew up around
"super-expensive" software - I had to be extremely frugal with my
allowance to purchase what little computer software I had.

So I have this belief that software should be affordable. I'm
constantly told that I'm underpricing VerifyMyPC, but you know what? I
don't care. Most users are absolutely thrilled to learn that there is
an affordable piece of software that reduces their technical support
times from 2 hours to 5 minutes. Time saved for them means they just
make back the $10 investment over and over.

> What sort of jobs would I be able to find if I wanted to get in over my head
>; in programming? Does it pay better to work for a major company? Or software
> development process being developed by one person.and distributed?

What you do is really up to you. Some people like job security. For
that, you need to get an 8 to 5 on salary. Some places are better than
others. There aren't a whole lot of places hiring Delphi programmers,
so you might want to expand your repertoire a little. You mentioned
PHP...that's web programming. Perhaps pick up ASP.NET and one other
.NET language (or C++).

Other people like a little adventure and want to start up their own
company. The owner of the company never sleeps...so don't get visions
of sitting on the beach and money pouring in. I work significantly
harder for significantly less pay. But it is extremely rewarding to get
each new customer. It helps to be out of debt, have some capital, and
be fairly young (< 35) when starting up a company (the younger you are,
the more financial risk you can take on). It also helps to be outgoing
(NOT an introvert) and have lots of professional connections.
Statistically, it takes about 5-6 years for most businesses to take off.
Plan your finances accordingly.

If you can't tell, I'm a one-man operation. MyUpdate Toolkit (works
with Delphi apps.!) is my biggest seller at the moment (annual
licenses). Companies keep telling me that InstallShield Update Services
(now FlexNet) is 5 times the cost of last year's price and is the main
reason why they are switching to MyUpdate Toolkit. In other words,
InstallShield is sending their customers to me in droves. There really
is something to be said for affordable software.

--
Thomas Hruska
CubicleSoft President
Ph: 517-803-4197

*NEW* VerifyMyPC 2.5
Change tracking and management tool.
Reduce tech. support times from 2 hours to 5 minutes.

http://www.CubicleSoft.com/VerifyMyPC/

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