4 Key excerpts on "Proprietary Software"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Managing Information in the Public Sector

  • Jay D White(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  chapter 7 .

  Open Source versus Proprietary Software

  There is tremendous controversy over the use of open source versus proprietary (or closed source) software within the public administration information system community.18 Open source software is either free or comes at a very low price. It also comes with a core source code that allows programmers to adapt the software to an agency’s specific needs and debug it if necessary to get the software operating properly. Proprietary Software, on the other hand, is usually much more expensive and does not come with the source code so it cannot be adapted easily to unique situations nor can it be debugged easily. Most of the major software vendors, most notably Microsoft, offer only Proprietary Software. These vendors maintain that they have intellectual property rights to their software products and that they are better equipped to debug their products and make improvements to them.

  Open source software is more than just the software itself. It is a philosophy about how software should be developed and distributed. That philosophy is clearly stated in the official definition of open source software maintained by the Open Source Initiative, which is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to the development of such software. Their definition of open source software follows in Exhibit 3.1 .

  According to the Open Source Initiative, the basic idea behind open source software is simple: “When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing.”19

  One of the major players in the open source game is Red Hat, Inc., which markets a variety of software applications using the Linux operating system. Other players include the Apache Software Foundation, which offers a variety of applications, most notably the Apache web browser as an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer. Then there is Mozilla, which also offers a web browser, Firefox, and an e-mail client called Thunderbird that compete with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Outlook, and Outlook Express. Also, OpenOffice. Org offers free word-processing and spreadsheet software to compete with Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect. It is not as powerful as Word, but as one IT consultant has put it, “some office workers need the massive Microsoft Office Suite, but millions of government workers don’t, so why pay for it and deal with the license hassles?”20

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  eBook - ePub

  The SAGE Encyclopedia of Online Education

  • Steven L. Danver(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Proprietary LMS or tools are owned by individuals or corporations under a trademark, patent, or copyright. Restrictions on Proprietary Software or tools are usually imposed through an end-user license agreement that all users are expected to agree to and sign before using the software. The arrangement works just like a contract of usage agreement, with conditions between the user and the vendor. In the event a user is found to have indulged in activities leading to the breaking of copyright conditions, the proprietor has the right to take legal action against the user.

  Proprietary teaching tools are chosen by most institutions as they are self-contained and do not require much technical support. Some industry observers, however, have predicted that the role of Proprietary Software will decrease in the future because of the growing competition from free software with no license fees. The potential of these new teaching tools has extended the capacity of distance and open education provision. The advent of massive open online courses is a product of LMS. Massive open online courses are mainly courses of study made available over the Internet without charge to a very large number of people.

  Paul T. Nleya

  See also Blackboard ; Edmodo ; Massive Open Online Courses ; Open Source Teaching Tools ; Schoology

  Further Readings

  Allan Jones , A.

  (2007 ). Proprietary Software tools as learning aids . Paper presented at the AACE Ed-Media 2007 conference , The Open University, Vancouver , British Columbia, Canada . Retrieved March 11, 2016, from http://www.aace.org/conf/edmedia/sessions/index.cfm/fuseaction/PaperDetails?CFID=3866240&CFTOKEN=24756879

  Bissell , C.

  (2010 ). The social construction of educational technology through the use of proprietary software . In

  L. Dirckinck-Holmfeld

  ,

  V. Hodgson

  ,

  C. Jones

  ,

  M. de Laat

  ,

  D. McConnell

  , &

  T. Ryberg

  (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Networked Learning (pp. 534 –540 ). Aalborg, Denmark : Author .

  Pankaja , N.

  , &

  Mukund Raj , P. K.

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  Handbook of Loss Prevention and Crime Prevention

  • Lawrence J. Fennelly(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Butterworth-Heinemann

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 43

  Proprietary information*

  John J. Fay,    Security Consultant

  Abstract

  This chapter discusses proprietary information, including the definition of the term and how it relates to trade secrets, patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Data protection is also discussed.

  Keywords

  Copyrights; encryption; industrial espionage; intellectual property; patents; trade secrets; trademarks; chief security officer; sensitive information

  Proprietary information is sensitive information that is owned by a company and which gives the company certain competitive advantages. Proprietary information assets are critical to the success of many, perhaps most businesses.1

  Introduction

  Proprietary information is information owned by a company or entrusted to it that has not been disclosed publicly and has value. Information is considered proprietary when the following conditions take place:

  • • It is not readily accessible to others.
  • • It was created by the owner through the expenditure of considerable resources.
  • • The owner actively protects the information from disclosure.

  Very critical forms of proprietary information are intellectual properties. Most countries recognize and grant varying degrees of protection to four intellectual property rights: patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets.

  Patents

  These are grants issued by a national government conferring the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling the invention within that country. Patents may be given for new products or processes. Violations of patent rights are known as infringement or piracy.

  Trademarks

  These are words, names, symbols, devices, or combinations thereof used by manufacturers or merchants to differentiate their goods and distinguish them from products that are manufactured or sold by others. Counterfeiting and infringement constitute violations of trademark rights.

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  eBook - ePub

  The Japanese Economy and Economic Issues since 1945

  • Edward R. Beauchamp, Edward R. Beauchamp(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  To protect their interests, intellectual property producers lobby for both strong laws and enforcement of laws against all forms of imitative products. As the dominant producers worldwide, U.S. software companies generally favor laws to restrict the development of such products, and regard the absence of such laws virtually as a form of theft. Discussions of software intellectual property laws usually focus on the types of restriction, usually one of three: (1) trade secrets, typically enforced by employment agreements and litigation against direct competitors; (2) copyright restrictions on software as a creative work, with protection of both the actual work itself and specific elements of its expression; and (3) patents, the most controversial mechanism for software legal protection, since it forbids differing expressions of the same fundamental idea. But such mechanisms reflect the precedents of Western-based legal systems, not inherent requirements per se for the protection of computer software; also, focusing on mechanisms misses the consequences of the success or failure of such restrictions. More important is the consideration of restrictions in terms of the various forms of imitation: • unauthorized duplication (piracy)—making exact copies of the original product. 9 From a legal standpoint, it is relatively easy to establish piracy and set a value for damages; in the United States, it is usually covered by copyright law. •  imitative implementation (cloning)—the construction of another (often competing) product by analyzing the characteristics of the original and then reimple-menting them in the imitation. To defend against this, software source code is tightly held as a trade secret, while copyright restrictions are used to control the use of reverse engineering. •  imitation of fundamental concepts—a producer restricting a competitor from making a similar product, although this remains controversial even in the U.S

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