Microsoft and Open Source

Since Open Source is visible always and anyone can see when a piece of code was written it is easy to identify its origin. In the case of a closed source company it would seem that it would be simple to incorporate stolen code and there is economic incentive to do so. If the origins cannot be discovered due to company policy then it seems that ownership rights should not be granted. The deed to the real estate depends on who landed on Baltic Avenue first and if I keep my own copy of the Monopoly game board then who is to say that it is not so? If there are a billion copies of the board ( which is the case ) then it would require a certifying agency such as the copyright office to search all billion cases before they granted positions on the monopoly board.

If software is created in Russia and stolen by a US company, they can file for copyright and be granted that use, then by using diplomatic pressure could claim ownership of that which is stolen and be in the complete legal right from US law. I saw some analysis of Chinese high speed rail development and the ability to leverage that which is legal in one jurisdiction against another makes it possible to simply shift the cards about in a person's pockets until I always have the royal straight flush. The system was designed for a less complex society and has no relevance or utility in dealing with technology as it exists today. It makes a neat trick to leverage and game the legal systems for profit. In a system of biological imperative it makes sense to destroy as many rivals as possible. It would seem that government and business is run as a kind of synthetic political eugenics. An interesting consequence is that it selects for survival outside a gene set and in fact creates a pseudo genetic code that exists only in the imagination and memories of the participants. That seems very odd. It would seem that it creates an environment that allows physical survival of those who are sustained by the system. It is almost like a complete ecosystem of competing micro organisms based on the logical DNA of a society. It creates patterns and responses over time that evolve to a vector. I would think it is as odd as the evolution of memes.

So long as countries act in disharmony and support their local oligarchies it is easy to steal from one and own in another jurisdiction. It is the outer space problem in miniature. If I lived on Mars, who would arrive to enforce the copyright on my copy of Newton's Principa. A tribal philosophy is hardly applicable in a space faring society. A new way of dealing with disputes needs to be created. Something that takes into account the realities of technology instead of a system designed 2000 years ago for people who fought with spears and shields and believed the skies were populated by gods that adjudicated their character.