Re: Expand this to all technology
>They won't be making any more money off of it, so why bother keeping it secret?
Probably because its rarely all their own work. What happens when the license a product/code which is still supported but the final software is not? Do the modifiers get an automatic license to use the included code? Can they redistribute it or does the product still die as the number of original copies dwindles? What happens if the product is obsolete but a portion of the tech in it is still valuable? E.g. what if XP needs killing because it is a flawed product, MS decides to give everyone a copy of Windows 10 but the NTFS code is the same in both? What if NTFS then needs a slight modification which breaks XP? Does the whole of the NTFS code have to be opened?
I'm not sure there is a good resolution to this. It is a can of worms which I suspect will stay firmly closed, mostly on the basis that customers will probably buy the stuff anyway.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
