NDA (WAS: Re: calling for the influence of the linux YDL community on sonnettech support team)

[Marilyn and Michael Cherry]

Two small points about NDAs -- although I am not a lawyer so you have to
take this as opinion for what it is worth.

1. Watch out for hidden NDAs. For example, in the Microsoft End User License
Agreement (EULA) for several of their patches is a hidden NDA. You agree by
accepting the EULA that you will not discuss benchmarks of their .NET
Framework.

2. While most NDAs have a term or length, for example you will not disclose
any information before a certain date, or until some point in time, I don't
think they can be enforced if the information is made public, or becomes
public by some other source. So if I have an NDA with FOO, and then I read
in the WSJ or somewhere else the same information, then I am no longer bound
to keep it secret.

Again, I get all my legal knowledge from watching Perry Mason on the
Hallmark Channel each morning while writing my code.


----- Original Message -----
From: "nathan r. hruby" <nathan@drama.uga.edu>
To: <yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 1:42 PM
Subject: NDA (WAS: Re: calling for the influence of the linux YDL community
on sonnettech support team)


> On Thu, 17 Apr 2003, Tremblay J. wrote:
>
> > NDA ??
> >
>
> Non-disclosure agreement.  A legal contract that you sign with another
> entity which prevents you from telling the world about something the other
> party is going to tell you, show you, or let you play with.  Typically
> used with beta testers, 3rd party developers, employees, and partnership
> members to prevent super-secret IP from esacping into the hands of the
> comptetitors.  (Though an NDA can be applied to anything.. IIRC, most of
> Microsofts Devloper kits, etc.. including a NDA in the license)
>
> NDA's normally aren't useful for OpenSource as most restrict what you can
> do with the knowledge you gained from whatever was under NDA so writing a
> open driver is.. well kinda out of the question.  This is why some
> companies (like nvidia) produce binary-only drivers for the hardware, as
> opposed to patches against source-code.
>
> -n
> --
> ----------------------------------------
> nathan hruby <nathan@drama.uga.edu>
> computer services specialist
> uga drama
> http://www.drama.uga.edu/support/
> ----------------------------------------
>
>
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