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Public: Intellectual Property
HalfSourceForge   (+3, -3)  [vote for, against]

I have a ton of half-finished, half -thought out software projects on my hard drive. I was considering posting these on a site like SourceForge so that the open source movement would benefit (showing prior art, sharing even more code etc) The problem is that these projects I have are in very early prototype stages. There is enough crap to weed through on SourceForge already, and I wouldn't want to contribute more by submitting my half-baked contraptions.

That's when I realized that there should be a web site just for such purpose. This is a place where developers upload their earliest craziest software code without fear of losing face over their ridiculous hack jobs and non-existent documentation. (or maybe even just ideas for sofware projects).
-- ixnaum, Nov 05 2006

it sounds wonderful for those who like to learn from snippets of code here and there. although.. i don't program. was interested once, but i erased my dad's harddrive, don't know how.

bun because it is not an invention, but useful. there are too many of the other sort here on halfbakery, useless inventions.
-- twitch, Nov 05 2006


You could ty pasting it into blogger, or some other free blogging site - and with appropriate commentary, it might become an interesting resource.
-- zen_tom, Nov 05 2006


I take my garbage to the dump every sunday.
-- Chefboyrbored, Nov 05 2006


//I take my garbage to the dump every sunday//

This idea was inspired by the general need to spread open source code (whether it be gems or garbage) for the simple reason of showing prior art. I'm guessing that there are thousands of brilliant half finished projects never published because the author righly views them as "garbage". That's fine, except these forgotten projects might contain just enough to prove prior art to fight patents.

Quote from wikipedia:

In most patent laws, prior art or state of the art (the latter term sometimes has other meanings as well) is all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date. If an invention has been described in prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid.
-- ixnaum, Nov 05 2006


is this place considered "public"... so any idea here cannot be patented?

not that i have a problem with that. i believe in open source, for software and also for patents.

not for ALL patents, but people should be able to create a type of patent where anybody can use it, and nobody can profit from the patent itself.
-- twitch, Nov 06 2006


//is this place considered "public"//

The Internet? It's about as public as you can get!

What use would a patent be if everybody could use it and nobody would profit? The best way to acheive that is to publish the idea without a patent - that way it is 'in the public domain'.
-- Jinbish, Nov 06 2006


//bun because it is not an invention, but useful. there are too many of the other sort here on halfbakery, useless inventions.//

That's what the halfbakery is for, [twitch] - inventions that are either not very well (if at all) thought out, incredibly useless, or so weird that we sometimes wonder what goes on in the head of the person that makes them.
-- froglet, Nov 06 2006


//The best way to acheive that is to publish the idea without a patent - that way it is 'in the public domain'. //

Indeedy. Once you create a patent you create a legally protected property that can be bought and sold just like any other property. It's OK all the while that our public-spirited benefactor holds that patent but what happens if they have a fatal accident and the rights to the patent are inherited by their money-grabbing Uncle Ebeneezer?
-- DrBob, Nov 06 2006



random, halfbakery