My buddy may be in some major trouble with his employer, and I'm wondering if it really is a legal thing or possibly just an ethical thing, or maybe not even that. His employer paid him to write a program that would be in direct competition with another program freely available in OS. The software he worked on would not be OS. However, He looked at the source of a 3rd program, (also OS) and took note of how it worked which was written in perl, and re-wrote everything in C/C++, once he found out how the perl program worked he never looked at it again, ie: everything he wrote was his code however he used the way the other program worked as a roadmap to follow for writing his code. Is this in any way infringing the rights of anyone? if so, is he and/or is company liable for these infringements? Where is the line drawn between inspiration and theft? I appreciate your feedback, thankyou.
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My buddy may be in some major trouble with his employer, and I'm wondering if it really is a legal thing or possibly just an ethical thing, or maybe not even that. His employer paid him to write a program that would be in direct competition with another program freely available in OS. The software he worked on would not be OS. However, He looked at the source of a 3rd program, (also OS) and took note of how it worked which was written in perl, and re-wrote everything in C/C++, once he found out how the perl program worked he never looked at it again, ie: everything he wrote was his code however he used the way the other program worked as a roadmap to follow for writing his code. Is this in any way infringing the rights of anyone? if so, is he and/or is company liable for these infringements? Where is the line drawn between inspiration and theft? I appreciate your feedback, thankyou.