trade secrets

[Bill Moss <bill.moss@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the scientific and engineering community, when one has a
real secret process or knowledge, one copyrights or patents
said idea/process. Otherwise, everything is shared. Imagine
if Einstein had kept the photoelectric effect secret in 1905
or Shotkey the Fermi charge interchange junction that lead
to the transistor.

I have published most of my work in technical journals, even
when working for large companies and patented or been part
of a company patent when money was to be made, publishing
afterwards. For example, I am a principal investigator on
the patents for amorphous silicon solar cells, fluidized bed
coal combustion and electric generation from tides.

In the software field, had not Bell Labs published Unix in
the 1980's, there would be no Linux, no Microsoft Windows,
no Mac OSX. This is true for the C language, Perl, Python,
the GUI interface (Xerox PARC).

What I am saying is that if someone has the skill to perform
a complex task, than their trade secrets are usually either
something that cannot be patented or copyrighted due to
their being common or prior art, or simply a sales pitch. In
this context I show people how to do things (its called
teaching graduate school) in the knowledge that the tasks we
perform are so complex that we are not in direct competition
save perhaps for recognition.
-- 
William (Bill) Moss
billmoss@xxxxxxx
NY (USA)
  Those who will not reason, are bigots,
  those who cannot, are fools,
  and those who dare not, are slaves.
by Lord Byron
  Justice will not be served until those who are
  unaffected are as outraged as those who are.
by Benjamin Franklin
  Honor, justice and humanity forbid us tamely to
  surrender that freedom which we received from
  our gallant ancestors and which our innocent
  posterity have a right to receive from us. We
  cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning
  succeeding generations to that wretchedness which
  inevitably awaits them if we basely entail
  hereditary bondage on them.
by Thomas Jefferson
Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms
6 July 1775


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