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