So if someone feels strongly about the way a module is written, he should be allowed to take someone else's idea and implement it as his own?!  Wow ... I'm at a loss for words ...

A good friend of mine told me a story years ago, when he had some novel ideas for a product (his field was biochemistry), and was trying to start his own company, but needed to get financing for it.  The venture capital corporation which he was talking with told him they were NOT willing to finance the development of a new technology.  "However", they said, "we would be fine with having you steal the technology from another company, and we will pay to defend you in court".  Apparently, that was a much cheaper, and presumably profitable strategy.  My friend was very disappointed, but he gave up the idea because the thought of stealing someone else's ideas went against his values.

So let me ask you ... let's say you had presented one of your modules before publishing them, perhaps this or maybe this.  And Greg London heard your presentation, but felt strongly about the namespace, or other implementation details.  Or maybe he simply noticed that you hadn't yet published it on CPAN.  Would that have given him the ethical right to publish it first?

I wonder how Mr. London would feel if I started distributing this or this with my own name on it instead of his own?  (I wouldn't do that of course -- it goes against my moral standards).

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.