From: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 15:26:36 +0800
To: tomw@netscape.com
Subject: Re: Mindshare and Java
Message-ID: <01I43B7OQJE88Y53CU@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From:	IN%"tomw@netscape.com"  "Tom Weinstein" 28-APR-1996 20:13:00.23

>Rich Graves wrote:
> 
>> 3. If I am Jack the Ripper, I have a way of proving that the code is
>>    my intellectual property.

>How do you prove that?  If I strip off your signature and sign it
>myself, how do you know it's yours?

	Prior publication or timestamping. Admittedly, you could have come up
with the same stuff independently (and will probably have modified some
unimportant respects so that the code is different, even if you didn't). But
that problem is there in any copyrighting/anti-plagarism scheme. For instance,
I recently had an idea on genetic algorithms (I've been researching coding
techniques for them.) I then came across a version of it in a journal, so I
have to cite that journal when I give the idea - even though I came up with it
independently.
	-Allen