[ProgSoc] software and food recipes

[vik <vik@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

As a pastry chef, something just occurred to me. software is like
recipes. The recipe is the source. The food is the precompiled binary.
(OK - the analogy doesn't quite fit since u don't have reproductive
technology for prepared food). The idea of copyrighting a recipe seems
ludicrous to me (then again, copyrighting of info in general does
too...), but even if a recipe book is copyrighted, one can still freely
copy 10%/1 chapter of it, which (for me) usually is most of the useful
recipes in the book. 

Most chefs I know are happy to give their recipes to someone who asks.
People then might play with the recipe to make something better, or
different. People are free to `reverse engineer' something they have
tasted in a restaurant. 

Recipes get better by people passing them around, scrutinising them,
adding things, trying different flavour combinations.

So does software.

-- 
vik@nospam.progsoc.org
<http://www.progsoc.org/~vik>
PGP: <http://www.progsoc.org/~vik/pgp.txt>

He who laughs last thinks slowest.
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