ping
Oops!......
Tech ping!......
A small time Thief stealing from Big time Thieves. What to do.
HFT is Theft....Plain and simple.
The Chinese spies are gonna be on this like white on rice. It looks like one of the important points is that the software was for in-house use and not a product for sale on its own. There’s a lot of software in any high-tech company, whether it’s a chip designer or an internet start-up, that’s only for internal use.
That is an extremely narrow viewpoint. Companies rarely sell or provide their source code. This ruling would seem to open the door to pulling source code for anything, even delivered products. Why? Because the source code - generally just text files on a computer - is rarely if ever delivered. Instead, source code is typically processed through a program called a compiler where it is turned into a stream of instructions for the particular computer it will be running on. (eg. windows based PC, or Mac OS/X PC, Android device, etc.) Source isn't delivered, executable binaries are delivered.
If you don't believe that reasoning, if you take the (reasonable) view that the source is well, the source of the delivered product... Then why this decision? Are not tools that enable the development, compilation, and delivery of the binaries, the delivered product, also protected? This is a tough spot here. Where do you draw the line on delivered/licensed/sold product and that which brings it to market?
Surely there are enough other laws on the books (cue Dr. Ferris) to get a conviction on something - theft of Trade Secrets perhaps, or has this string of charges tripped double-jeopardy?