[thelist] Proprietary vs. non-proprietary code?

[Marc Seyon]

Hello the list,

I've got an issue that I'd appreciate some clarification/comments on. After 
reading the thread titled "Intellectual property on source files", which 
was on the list on 1/25/01, I added a clause to our standard contract to 
cover this.

The client promptly protested, more out of "contrariness" and lack of clarity.

So here's my question. It's based on this statement by Mike Hardaker:

 >Of course, there can be problems if the code contains some really clever
 >proprietary stuff that you don't want other people to see, under any
 >circumstances.

How do you differentiate proprietary stuff and run-of-the-mill stuff? I 
mean it's easy to do with examples, creating an HTML table is no great 
trick, but maybe an authentication system is. But to a non-developer, it's 
still code, possibly not even recognisable as being separate languages or 
methods.

I know this is a grey area, but I'm hoping for some feedback from some of 
the more "seasoned" campaigners on the list.

my thanks.
-marc